Centenary Institute receives Cancer Council NSW grants

Cancer Council NSW has awarded funding to 14 ground-breaking cancer research projects including three to the Centenary Institute.

Successful Centenary Institute recipients and their research initiatives are:

Professor Geoff McCaughan, Head of the Centenary Institute Liver Injury and Cancer Program. Project: A new approach to target liver cancer.

“Liver cancer is one of the deadliest cancers and is the sixth leading cause of cancer death in Australia. Current therapies for advanced liver cancer are limited and generally only grant a few months of added survival time for the patient. This project will investigate the use of combination therapies for treating liver cancer – an approach which has not yet been widely investigated. We will be using two potential new drug treatments that will target the cancer cells, the surrounding blood vessels and the immune system within the tumour,” said Professor McCaughan

Professor John Rasko AO, Head of the Centenary Institute Gene and Stem Cell Therapy Program and Royal Prince Alfred Hospital. Project: Monitoring and predicting clinical response to immunotherapy against pancreatic cancer and asbestos-induced lung cancer.

“Pancreatic cancer and mesothelioma (asbestos-induced lung cancer) are among those cancers currently lacking effective treatments, resulting in poor outcomes with five-year survival rates of less than 10%. More than 3,000 and 700 new cases of pancreatic cancer and mesothelioma, respectively, are annually diagnosed in Australia. This project will use the body’s killer immune cells (T-cells) and endow them with the information as to how to recognise and attack cancer cells (an approach known as chimeric antigen receptor T-cell therapy),” said Professor Rasko.

Dr Ulf Schmitz, Head of the Centenary Institute Computational BioMedicine Laboratory within the Gene and Stem Cell Therapy Program and University of Sydney. Project: Deciphering the cross-talk between microRNAs and retained introns in cancer gene regulation.

“This project will investigate a regulatory process known as ‘intron retention’, in both breast cancer and leukaemia. The process allows unwanted ‘junk DNA’ to enter the cell and interfere with other regulatory processes. Intron retention has been found to play a critical role in cancer development, but little is known about the underlying mechanism. Computer models and experimental methods will be used to establish how this process works, potentially opening up an entirely new field of cancer research,” said Dr Schmitz.

The Centenary Institute wishes to thank Cancer Council NSW for their support of our researchers who continue to pursue life-changing and life-saving medical research.

Full details of all successful Cancer Council NSW grants are available online here.