Qld opens tumour-cell testing facility

More effective treatments for brain cancer will be developed at a tumour-cell testing facility opened yesterday at The University of Queensland’s Queensland Brain Institute.

Funded by a $1.14 million grant from the Australian Cancer Research Foundation (ACRF), the ACRF Brain Tumour Research Centre was officially opened by Queensland Minister for Health, Stephen Robertson.

University of Queensland’s vice-chancellor Prof Paul Greenfield thanked the ACRF for its support.

“The QBI (Queensland Brain Institute), formed as part of the Queensland Government’s Smart State Initiative and building on a long history of neuroscience at The University of Queensland, is the ideal location for this world-first centre,” Greenfield said.

“This is the first time researchers will be able to isolate, enumerate and purify tumour stem cells with such high levels of efficiency,” said QBI director, Prof Perry Bartlett.

“We know brain cancer occurs in about 10 in every 100,000 people in the Western world. It’s a disease that presents in patients of all ages, and is the second most common tumour type among children and young adults.”

ACRF chairman Tom Dery said the centre would be the first automated, high-throughput screening facility designed for testing and identifying stem cells derived from human brain tumours.

“Funding advanced facilities and major equipment capable of exploring new approaches to achieve better results for cancer patients is the foundation’s sole focus,” Dery said.

The new screening facility uses a combination of advanced techniques to record molecular changes in neural stem cell assays.

Scientists from QBI, the Institute for Molecular Bioscience and the Queensland Institute for Medical Research, as well as research clinicians from Brisbane’s leading public hospitals, will all have access to the ACRF Brain Tumour Research Centre.