ProCan to receive $41 million funding boost

ProCan, the ACRF seed-funded cancer research project has been strengthened with a $41 million boost to expand research to outsmart cancer.

In 2015, ACRF awarded Children’s Medical Research Institute with ACRF’s 30th Anniversary $10 million grant towards the ACRF International Centre for the Proteome of Human Cancer (ProCan™) research project.

Now, with an extra $41 million dollars in funding provided by the NSW and Commonwealth Governments on Monday, this will further help researchers apply cutting-edge science to detect, diagnose and treat cancers.

The joint investment will support a world-first proteomics project, ProCan, at the Westmead Children’s Medical Research Institute (CMRI).

Premier Gladys Berejiklian said the NSW Government is investing $21 million in the project.

“The NSW Government is proud to support the CMRI and the ProCan project that will support the work to ultimately crack the cancer code.”

Federal Health Minister Greg Hunt said the Commonwealth Government is contributing $20 million to enhance Australia’s international reputation as a cancer research leader.

“This will support ProCan to create an unprecedented database containing massive amounts of molecular information on all types of cancer,” Mr Hunt said.

NSW Health Minister Brad Hazzard said the combined investment would allow the CMRI to make ProCan a truly global and revolutionary project.

“The concept behind ProCan is to make Westmead the home of the world’s first database of the entire cancer spectrum,” Mr Hazzard said.

ProCan is designed to improve the knowledge of cancer and the treatment of patients. This project was immensely strengthened by the link to the ‘Cancer Moonshot’ initiative led by ex-US Vice President, Joe Biden.

The project is analysing and measuring thousands of proteins simultaneously in cancers and using advanced techniques to learn how to predict the most effective treatments for individual cancers.

The technology will generate results within five to seven years, which will help develop a new method of cancer diagnosis and treatment planning that can give clinicians guidance within 36 hours. It will be particularly powerful for rare cancers.