This year more than 160,000 Australians, young and old, men and women, are likely to be diagnosed with cancer and close to 50,000 will die as a result.
Cancer is selfish, deceptive and relentless. It’s a deadly problem that needs disruptive solutions, starting with pioneering programs and revolutionary research.
Founded in 1984 by the late Sir Peter Abeles and the late Lady Sonia McMahon, ACRF provides privately funded grants of between $1 Million and $10 Million for technology, equipment and infrastructure for cancer research.
But we don’t do it alone.
Thanks to people like you, we’ve helped the discovery and creation of large machines and small vaccines. Discoveries that help doctors diagnose cancer quickly and personalise treatments, making them more effective.
Ongoing research is needed to reach a world without cancer, and you don’t have to be a scientist to play a part. There are many ways you can support the work of ACRF.
Help us back brilliant.
Thanks to the generosity of people like you, each year we are able to award high-impact grants, enabling Australia’s brightest minds in cancer research to continuously look for new and improved ways to prevent, detect and treat cancer.
Your donations contributed to the initial seed funding to Professor Ian Frazer’s research into the cervical cancer (HPV) vaccine. Over 150 million doses of vaccine have been delivered worldwide to date. Thanks to an universal immunisation program, Australia is set to be the first country to effectively eliminate the disease.
Together we have supported cancer research at WEHI, which has led to a treatment that melts away certain advanced forms of chronic lymphocytic leukaemia. The treatment has been approved for clinical use in the US, European Union and Australia and is now being trialled for other types of cancer.
In 2015, your donations enabled ACRF to grant $10 million seed funding to an ambitious cancer proteome project that aims to provide each cancer patient a personalised treatment plan within 36 hours. This will dramatically improve treatment outcomes and help avoid unnecessary treatments.
With your contributions, ACRF became one of the founding partners of an initiative that will tackle the most serious cases of infant, childhood and adolescent cancer in Australia. It is a key step towards the program's vision of one day helping to cure 100% of children with cancer.
There are many not-for-profit cancer foundations in the charitable giving sector, all doing fantastic work. To help you distinguish ACRF from other cancer charities:
We fund research into ALL types of cancer, in research institutes, universities and hospitals ALL across Australia.
ACRF funds are directed to purchase state of the art equipment and technologies that advance the scientific discovery process – ultimately working to save lives.
The cancer research we fund is assessed according to the world-class standards of an esteemed scientific committee of Australian and international cancer researchers.
Our highly esteemed Medical Research Advisory Committee (MRAC) reviews, scrutinises, and competitively evaluates funding applications from Australian researchers, across a wide spectrum of projects.
As senior medical research professionals themselves, our MRAC have a detailed understanding of the global cancer research landscape and they will only endorse the most promising projects that have potential to provide us with the greatest health and social returns.
Since 1984, we’ve given over $174M to 43 research institutions who have developed some of the most incredible and ground-breaking advancements in cancer research and treatment.
On behalf of Australia’s leading cancer researchers, we thank our donors, partners and supporters. It is your generosity that makes it possible to provide these major grants – we receive no funding from any other source.
