The Walter & Eliza Hall Institute (WEHI) – 2010
Amounted Granted: $2 million
For: Equipment & Infrastructure
Chief Investigators: Professor Jerry Adams, Dr Philippe Bouillet, Dr Chris Burns, Professor Peter Colman, Professor Suzanne Cory, Professor David Huang, A/Professor Geoffrey Lindeman, A/Professor Andrew Roberts, Dr Clare Scott, Professor Andreas Strasser, Professor Jane Visvader, Professor Keith Watson
Project Description: The funding will provide new, state-of-the-art facilities that will accelerate research into the origins of cancer and advance cancer drug discovery.
The grant will allow WEHI to build on their breakthroughs in breast cancer and extend them to lung and ovarian cancers. The funding will also provide facilities that will maximise their chances of using chemistry to generate new cancer medicines.
The institute is undergoing a major capital works program to expand and redevelop its principal research laboratories in Parkville.
The ACRF funding will support the research of Professors Jane Visvader and Geoff Lindeman, who focus on the biology of epithelial cancers such as breast cancer and the role of stem cells in the development of these cancers. Epithelial cancers account for 80 per cent of the cancer burden in our society.
The group recently identified that female hormones regulate breast stem cells, explaining decades of evidence linking breast cancer risk to exposure to female hormones. The ACRF funding will help them build on their recent breast cancer discoveries and expand the research program into other solid tumour types, including ovarian and lung cancers.
It will also support the institute’s commitment to developing its basic biological discoveries in cancer research into new pharmaceuticals that will yield major healthcare benefits. Much of this work is undertaken in the Chemical Biology division which provides leadership in high-throughput chemical screening, medicinal chemistry and molecular and cell biology.
Previous ACRF Grants:
