ACRF Centre for Advanced Cancer Genomics

The $1.75M ACRF grant will fund three pieces of equipment, including a high throughput next generation DNA sequencer and equipment to isolate single cells from a patient’s tumour.

The equipment will make it possible to analyse thousands of cells from hundreds of tumours and examine billions of genetic sequences to determine the genetic make-up of each tumour and provide new insights into how cancer cells evolve and interact with normal cells.

It will be housed at the world-class single-cell sequencing facility being led by The University of Western Australia’s Professor Forrest at the Harry Perkins Institute of Medical Research in Nedlands.

Single cell analysis of cancer tumours, to see which genes are turned on and off in thousands of cells within a patient’s tumour, is the next wave in cancer research, providing hope to patients that researchers will be able to identify new drugs to combat cancer, better predict a tumour’s response to drugs and develop innovative ways to kill cancer cells.

A consortium of cancer researchers and clinicians across Perth led by Professor Alistair Forrest who heads up the Systems Biology and Genomics Laboratory at the Harry Perkins Institute of Medical Research was recently awarded $3.75M from the Cancer Research Trust to build a comprehensive atlas of the cell types that make up cancer tumours.