Please click here, or on the image (right), to read our top stories on cancer research, fundraising around Australia, and ACRF news for November. This edition features the ACRF grant announcements, christmas giving ideas, and plenty of fantastic fundraiser stories from throughout the month.

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Last night the ACRF was proud to award $9 million in grants to three cutting-edge cancer research centres who are doing truly fantastic work here in Australia.

The awardees were selected after a thorough investigation by our Medical Research Advisory Committee (which consists of 13 esteemed Australian cancer researchers and is chaired by Professor Ian Frazer, co-creator of the cervical cancer vaccine).

In May of this year, ACRF received a total of 16 applicants for its cancer research grants. From these candidates, five were selected for further assessment , and yesterday, having conducted extensive site visits and interviews, the Committee made their final recommendations to the ACRF Board of Trustees.

The grants will be used exclusively to fund state-of-the-art technologies and facilities which speed up discoveries in our fight against cancer – ultimately working to save lives by saving time.

A $6.5 million cancer research grant will strengthen expert collaboration between Australia’s top scientists and doctors in the fight against children’s cancer.

Every year more than 600 Australian children are newly diagnosed with cancer, and approximately 150 will not survive this ordeal.

But a promising new professional network will bring research breakthroughs made at the Children’s Cancer Institute Australia (CCIA), the Children’s Medical Research Institute (CMRI), and Kids’ Research Institute (KRI) directly to the hospital bedsides at Sydney’s Children’s Hospital Randwick, The Children’s Hospital at Westmead and John Hunter Children’s Hospital in Newcastle.

Chair of the ACRF Medical Research Advisory committee (and co-creator of the cervical cancer vaccine), Professor Ian Frazer is currently working on a world-first strategy to combat skin cancer.

“This group of cancers (skin cancers)…may be started off by a virus infection – which presents a great opportunity, because the idea of vaccinating to prevent a cancer is enormously appealing,” Professor Frazer said.

Professor Frazer believes some virus types, including the wart virus or HPV, are embedded in the layers of the skin, and they pose a skin cancer risk when people with damaged or weak immune systems are overexposed to the sun.

A new anti-cancer agent is entering clinical trials to treat the most common type of leukaemia.

The Walter and Eliza Hall Institute (WEHI) in Melbourne is implementing the phase Ia clinical trial that will demonstrate the safest dose of ABT-199, a drug designed to block the function of the Bcl-2 protein which allows leukaemia cells to live longer.