Congratulations to our clinician-scientist Professor Hui Gan for being awarded a Medical Research Future Fund (MRFF) grant of over $750,000 to pursue a study into brain cancer (glioblastoma).
Glioblastoma is an aggressive type of brain cancer with limited treatment options. Professor Gan, who leads the Cancer Therapies and Biologies Lab, said:
“The unique biology of the brain presents formidable challenges. Approaches that work in other cancers have failed.
The blood-brain barrier is a particular problem, as it can limit drugs reaching the brain tumours. Whilst we continue to test promising agents from general oncology drug development, drugs that specifically target the vulnerabilities of brain cancer are underway and we await those eagerly.”
With this funding, Professor Gan’s team will conduct a study to investigate whether Selective Internal Radiation Therapy (SIRT) can offer new treatment avenues for patients with glioblastoma.
“Once we receive the funding, we hope to have the study open within three months and to be completed within 12 months.
“We want to show the safety and feasibility of this way of breaching the blood-brain barrier and treating tumours with a novel drug. In addition to hopefully benefiting the patients on this trial, we hope to show that this is a safe and effective way of breaching the blood-brain barrier for other drugs also,” said Professor Gan.
Congratulations to Professor Gan and the rest of the team who will be leading this important study.