Left: CHIRI’s Associate Professor Pieter Eichhorn, Professor Marco Falasca, Associate Professor Nina Tirnitz-Parker and Dr Rodrigo Carlessi. Right: Professor Peter Leedman and Associate Professor Nina Tirnitz-Parker.
Curtin University and CHIRI’s Associate Professor Nina Tirnitz-Parker and Director of the Harry Perkins Institute of Medical Research, UWA Professor Peter Leedman (pictured above right), will co-lead a collaborative team of researchers testing new treatments for primary liver cancer at a new
$10.8 million world-class research centre for Perth.
Announced this week, the centre will be established with a $5 million Cancer Research Trust grant and $5.8 million from Minderoo Foundation, Curtin University, The University of Western Australia, Harry Perkins Institute of Medical Research, the State Government and charitable organisations.
Carrying out the research will be the Western Australian Liver Cancer Collaborative, a team of more than 50 researchers from UWA, the Harry Perkins Institute of Medical Research and Curtin-CHIRI.
The team will apply the latest techniques to analyse patient tumours and test new treatments for malignant cancer starting in the liver, which is responsible for the third-most cancer related deaths worldwide.
The team includes Nina and her CHIRI colleagues Associate Professor Pieter Eichhorn, Professor Marco Falasca and Dr Rodrigo Carlessi (pictured above left), all from Curtin’s School of Pharmacy and Biomedical Sciences.
Also involved in the research will be Perth’s three main teaching hospitals as well as interstate and international collaborators.
Among the team’s aims are establishing and profiling a repository of organoids representing different tumour subtypes to screen for possible treatment choices without side effects to the patient; and developing a large resource of approximately 500 liver cancer samples over five years from across Australia.
Nina said the team was incredibly grateful to the Cancer Research Trust for its $5 million grant matched by further $5.8 million from generous donations.
Minderoo Foundation is providing $2.5 million, Curtin University $1 million, $500,000 is being contributed by each of UWA, the Harry Perkins Institute of Medical Research, the WA Health Department and the Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital Foundation. The McCusker Charitable Foundation is contributing $300,000.
“Such a significant investment in liver cancer research will enable us to develop a world-class bio-bank and collect extensive data that will be available to researchers and medical specialists around the world,” she said.
“Most importantly, the Centre will make a difference to the treatment of liver cancer and contribute to greater international understanding of the disease.”
You can read more about funding for the centre and its research in the Curtin University media release.
