Western Australian Institute for Medical Research
The grant funded the construction and equipping of eight state-of-the-art research laboratories at the Royal Perth Hospital Medical Research Foundation building and the Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital. The new laboratories at Western Australian Institute for Medical Research (WAIMR) became home to 100 researchers specialising in cancer, cardiovascular, endocrinology and neuroscience.
This grant is pivotal to the Institute to help reverse the brain drain from Western Australia. They plan to recruit the best international and interstate researchers. Without the new facilities at WAIMR elite medical researchers could not be attracted to WA.
Achievements
- Establishment of a centre of cancer research excellence in WA with a focus on the genetics.
- Discovered new genes involved in the development of cancer and leukaemia.
- Examined new pathways within cells which may become deregulated in breast and prostate cancer.
- Investigated genes that influence the way individuals deal with potentially cancer causing compounds in the environment, leading-edge of mesothelioma research.
- Studies on hormone dependant cancers.
- Research on liver cancer and lymphomas.
- WA Research Tissue network as a repository of cancer samples.