Research Institute: Victorian Comprehensive Cancer Centre
Amount granted: $2 million
Year granted: 2013
This funding will help to fit out a specialised centre within the new Victorian Comprehensive Cancer Centre. This centre will incorporate a selection of emerging, cutting-edge technologies with the ability to identify and inform targeted drug design.
By facilitating the complex analysis of proteins and phosphoproteins (from human cancer samples), this centre will play a key role in the progression of clinical trials and drug testing. In an Australian first, and thanks to the close proximity to patients as a function of the new Victorian Comprehensive Cancer Centre, researchers will have the ability to collect samples from patients and test them in the new ACRF Translational Proteomics Facility. Normally, it would take weeks to months to determine whether a patient’s treatment is working, but with this facility, it will take a matter of days.
The ACRF Translational Proteomics Facility takes technology which is being used extensively in the research space, and taking it into the clinical space, allowing high quality and rigorous evaluation on the application and effectiveness of therapies in trial.
The Victorian Comprehensive Cancer Centre (VCCC) was seed-funded with a $5million ACRF grant in 2006. It is a $1 billion new facility, purpose-built for cancer research, treatment and care. It houses teams from Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre, Melbourne Health and the University of Melbourne.
Chief Investigators: Professor Paul Waring, Professor Tony Bacic, Professor James Bishop, Professor Antony Burgess, Professor Frank Caruso, Dr Jayesh Desai, Professor Paul Gleeson, Professor Danny Hoyer, Professor Andrew Lonie, Professor Grant MacArthur, Professor Malcolm McConville, Professor Andrew Roberts, Associate Professor Clare Scott, Professor John Zalcberg.
What your donations have achieved
Cervical cancer vaccine
We gave initial seed funding to Professor Ian Frazer’s research into the cervical cancer (HPV). Over 150 million doses of vaccine have been delivered worldwide to date.
The pill that melts away cancer
Our long term support of cancer research at WEHI has led to a treatment that melts away certain advanced forms of chronic lymphocytic leukaemia. It has been approved for clinical use in the US, European Union and Australia and is being trialed for other types of cancer.
Personalised cancer diagnosis
In 2015, we awarded $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 improve treatment outcomes and help avoid unnecessary treatments.
Zero childhood cancer
We are one of the founding partners of the initiative that will tackle the most serious cases of infant, childhood and adolescent cancer in Australia. It is a key step towards the program vision of one day helping to cure 100% of children with cancer.
