Record funding for cancer research in the west

A record $2.8 million in research funding was announced last week by Cancer Council Western Australia.

A research team led by Professor Cameron Platell, Director of the Colorectal Cancer Research at St John of God Subiaco Hospital and Winthrop Professor of Surgery at the University of Western Australia, received one of the largest grants of almost $200,000 over two years for investigating how patients with rectal cancer respond to chemotherapy or radiotherapy, and tailoring treatment accordingly.

Professor Lawrie Abraham and colleagues at the University of Western Australia (UWA) received funding for their research into using thalidomide to treat cancer. They are investigating the actions of thalidomide on cancers, including in the liver, blood and bone.

Professor Claire Johnson of UWA’s Cancer and Palliative Research and Evaluation Unit received funding to research how to optimise the quality of multidisciplinary care for people with cancer and their families.

The Cancer Council WA’s research program supports researchers at all stages of their career, and four young researchers secured Early Career Investigator Grants.

Dr Terry Boyle, a research officer in the Epidemiology group of the Western Australian Institute of Medical Research, received a grant to study whether physical activity can make a difference to the wellbeing of survivors of non-Hodgkin lymphoma.

UWA researcher Dr Rebecca Fuller, from the School of Chemistry and Biochemistry, won a Suzanne Cavanagh Early Career Investigator Grant to further develop a technique to see whether nanoparticles can be used in medical imaging to detect very small tumours that are sometimes undiagnosed because of their size. By developing new contrast agents that specifically target cancer cells, this work will help find small tumours early, identify how active they are and allow patients to begin treatment as soon as possible.

Dr Robert White who is based at the Parkinson’s Centre at Edith Cowan University and Regenerative Neuroscience at UWA, was given funding to test a new technology that could reduce the aggressiveness of neuroblastoma, a cancer originating in the nervous system that occurs almost exclusively in young children.

And Dr Alison McDonnell, from the School of Medicine and Pharmacology at UWA and based at Sir Charles Gardiner Hospital, received funding for her work investigating immune responses in patients being treated for lung cancer or mesothelioma.

Funding was also given for two new positions. A  Cancer Council Postdoctoral Fellowship was awarded to Dr Tania Tabone at the Translational Pathology Research Laboratory in Cancer and
 a Royal Perth Hospital (RPH) Clinical Fellowship to Assoc Prof Andrew Redfern.

A full list of the grants and fellowships awarded for 2013 is available on the Cancer Council’s website.