Childhood leukaemia researcher wins award

Petra Bachmann was announced this year’s Open Senior Division winner in the highly respected Coast Association Tow Research Awards.

Bachmann was one of five participants in the division of the awards, competing against clinicians and researchers from the Prince of Wales Hospital and colleagues at UNSW.

Now in the final year of her studies, UNSW PhD student Bachmann presented the results of her research on childhood cancer, done at the Children’s Cancer Institute Australia for Medical Research.

Bachmann’s research centred on glucocorticoids, which play an important role in the treatment of childhood acute lymphoblastic leukaemia (ALL). She investigated why some tumours develop resistance against the drug — a medical dilemma that remains poorly understood.

Bachmann’s research has led to the identification of a gene involved in cell death. The gene can be modified by molecular biology techniques to circumvent glucocorticoid resistance in childhood ALL, implicating possible therapeutic strategies for the cancer.

Initiated in the 1970s by Dr Wally Tow, the Tow Awards foster collaborations between clinical investigators and research scientists located at the research institutes and hospitals around UNSW’s Randwick campus.