The ACRF is proud to welcome Air Chief Marshal Angus Houston AC, AFC (Ret’d) to its Board of Trustees. Air Chief Marshal Houston became a board member of the Australian Cancer Research Foundation late in 2011.

Air Chief Marshal Houston retired from the military last year after 41 years service. He served as Chief of Air Force for four years, and most recently as Chief of the Australian Defence Force from July 2005 – July 2011.

“In both of those positions, Air Chief Marshal Houston had an extremely high public profile and was warmly regarded by the community for the manner in which he carried his responsibilities,” said ACRF Chairman, Mr Tom Dery.

ACRF is delighted to be associated with positive research findings leading to possible treatments for Acute Myeloid Leukaemia (AML).

Scientists from the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute (WEHI) in Melbourne, in collaboration with local and international scientists, have found a potential ‘achilles heel’ for this terrible disease which has such a poor prognosis.

They have found that AML cells may be susceptible to medications that target a protein called Mcl-1. Treatments removing that protein from AML cells can rapidly kill these aggressive cancer cells.

“Importantly, non-cancerous blood cells were much less susceptible to dying when Mcl-1 was depleted,” said lead researcher, Dr Stefan Glaser.

Two ACRF-funded cancer research centres have worked in collaboration to discover a mutant gene that increases the risk of melanoma in approximately 200,000 Australians.

The gene, known as MITF, is known for regulating pigmentation – turning the skin brown after exposure to the sun, for example.

But cancer researchers at the Westmead Institute of Cancer Research (a 2011 ACRF grant awardee) together with the Queensland Institute of Medical Research have found that in many Australians, MITF is mutated, working abnormally to increase the risk that sunlight or other causes will cause malignant melanomas by 250%.

The Australian Cancer Research Foundation (ACRF) team would like to wish you, and your loved ones, a very happy and safe holiday this Christmas.

Our staff will be taking a short break, with our office closing on Thursday 22 December, 2011 and reopening on Tuesday 3 January, 2012.

During this time, if you would like to make a donation online (perhaps in lieu of a late Christmas gift or to kick start your New Year with some good karma) our virtual elves will be working away to process your kind contributions and issue your receipts. They will not however, be able to send In Celebration or In Memory donation acknowledgements to a next of kin – so we will do this as soon as we get back in the office.

This month has seen the mourning of two highly regarded influential Australians, and the Australian Cancer Research Foundation (ACRF) would like to thank well-wishers for their generous donations in their memory.

The late Lady (Faye) Rowland, wife to the former Governor of NSW, Air Marshal Sir James Anthony Rowland, lost her fight with cancer on December 16, 2011. The family have requested that donations be made to the ACRF in lieu of flowers or gifts, a gesture for which ACRF is truly grateful. We send our thanks and best wishes to the family and friends of such a wonderful woman.

The ACRF is also humbled to receive donations in memory of the late V8 Supercar driver, Jason Richards. It was only a year ago that Jason was diagnosed with a particularly aggressive form of cancer. Despite the prognosis, Jason continued to be a force on the track, and his energy and determination has touched many Australians.

Christmas is a time that can be difficult for many thousands of Australians who have lost a loved one to this terrible disease in recent years. If you wish to make a memorial donation to the ACRF, please click here.