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Peter Mac’s Professor Sherene Loi has been inducted into the Victorian Honour Roll of Women.
The Honour Roll is a Victorian Government initiative which recognises women who have demonstrated remarkable leadership and excellence in their field.
Prof Loi is Consultant Medical Oncologist that specialises in the treatment of breast cancer patients and lab head of Peter Mac’s Translational Breast Cancer Genomics and Therapeutics Laboratory, which spans from basic discovery science through to translational medicine and clinical trials.
Her scientific papers regularly rank in the top 1% by citations globally, placing her in the top echelon of Peter Mac scientists.
In 2021, Prof Loi received the Frank Fenner Prize for Life Scientist of the Year in the Prime Minister’s Prizes for Science, and the Australian Academy of Health and Medical Sciences’ Jian Zhou Medal.
She pioneered the counting of “TILs” - tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes - in breast cancer tissue as a way to optimize treatment and this has now become standard of care, as well as leading development of immunotherapy treatment for breast cancer patients.
Prof Loi is also a clinician who, as part of a busy breast cancer clinic at Peter Mac, directly treats and cares for breast cancer patients.
“I’m delighted to be part of this initiative which highlights the amazing achievements of women across a broad range of professional fields,” Prof Loi says.
“You can’t be what you can’t see, and my hope is that many more Australian girls and young women see in their future an exciting, rewarding and impactful career in science and medicine.”
In announcing latest inductees, Victorian Minister for Women Natalie Hutchins MP said: “Victoria is full of remarkable women who are leading the nation in their chosen fields and in their communities – these honours are about celebrating their achievements”.
“Congratulations to all of this year’s inductees in the Victorian Honour Roll of Women – every one of you have made significant and lasting contributions to our state and you help to inspire others to do the same.”
More than 700 women have been inducted since 2001 - each recognised for their personal achievements and for forging a brighter path for all women.
The late Hon Joan Kirner AC, Victoria’s only female Premier, created the Honour Roll to formally acknowledge women for their achievements and to encourage others to follow in their footsteps.
See the list of all 2022 inductees to the Victorian Honour Roll of Women
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It has been a huge night for teams from the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre with two projects led by Peter Mac being recognised with 2022 Victorian Public Healthcare Awards.
The Peter Mac Pharmacy team took out the ‘Safer Care Victoria award for quality and safety improvement’ for a project that used pharmacogenetics to provide safer chemotherapy care for patients while the iCanEAT project, led by the Nutrition team, won the ‘Safer Care Victoria partnering in healthcare’ award.
Peter Mac Chief Executive, Professor Shelley Dolan, said it was fantastic to see the work of Peter Mac staff acknowledged at this year’s awards.
“It’s just amazing to have the two shortlisted Peter Mac projects take home prizes at this year’s Victorian Public Healthcare Awards,” Shelley said. “Congratulations to our Pharmacy team and our Nutrition team for their success.”
“Given all that healthcare professionals have been through over the past two years, tonight has been a wonderful opportunity to celebrate the brilliant work of Victorian healthcare workers.”
Pharmacist-led pharmacogenetics program for safer chemotherapy
The Pharmacogenetics project led by Peter Mac Pharmacy team members focused on improving the safety of patients treated with the fluoropyrimidine (FP) class of chemotherapy agents. These are commonly prescribed to patients with gastrointestinal cancers and other solid tumours.
The trial, believed to be the first of its type in Australia, introduced the routine screening of patients to identify deficiencies linked to the DPYD gene. This has been associated with rare, but serious, complications for chemotherapy patients including ICU admission and even death.
Pharmacogenetics is the study of how genetic factors affect a patient’s reaction to a drug.
The program was initially implemented as a clinical trial and has now been adopted into routine care models at both Peter Mac and Bendigo Health.
iCanEAT: implementation of the iCanEAT pathway for people with cancer, carers and health professionals
Good nutrition is essential for all people with cancer but three in five patients have symptoms that impact their eating.
The iCanEAT project saw staff from Peter Mac work with colleagues across six other healthcare providers, co-designing resources that improved access to information about the best nutrition for cancer patients.
This ‘CanEAT pathway’ provides a guide for optimal cancer nutrition care, including resources and practical tips to help patients, carers and health professionals.
Through partnerships with consumer advocates, a range of multidisciplinary health professionals, and in many health settings, the iCanEAT project added 46 new resources to make the CanEAT pathway more useable and interactive. This improved the uptake of the pathway by almost 700%.
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Peter Mac professors Ben Solomon and Phil Darcy have been elected Fellows of the Australian Academy of Health and Medical Sciences (AAHMS).
Each year, the AAHMS Fellowship elects the best and brightest minds in Australia to join the Academy in recognition of their outstanding achievements and exceptional, ongoing contributions in the field of medical and health sciences.
Professor Solomon is a medical oncologist in Peter Mac’s Lung Service and Group Leader of the Molecular Therapeutics and Biomarkers Laboratory. His research is focused on developing novel treatments which improve outcomes for patients with lung cancer.
Professor Darcy is a NHMRC Senior Research Fellow and Group Leader within the Research faculty at the Peter Mac. His team, among a range of projects in immunotherapy, is working to make CAR T-cell therapy – a breakthrough in blood cancer – also able to treat solid tumours.
AAHMS President, Professor Ingrid Scheffer, congratulated the 31 newly elected Fellows (15 women and 16 men) drawn from a wide range of fields and specialities.
“The wealth of experience and diversity of expertise amongst our newest Fellows will allow the Academy to continue to provide an expert and authoritative voice that spans the full breadth and depth of health services, medical science, research and innovation in Australia,” Prof Scheffer said.
“Our Fellows include the nation’s top health and research leaders and I look forward to seeing the contributions that our 2022 Fellows make to ensure that Australia continues to have a robust and world-leading health and medical research and innovation sector.”
New Fellows were announced at the AAHMS’ 2022 Annual Meeting which is underway in Melbourne on 13 – 14 October.
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Every day Peter Mac researchers are trying to uncover a new way to diagnose, treat and eradicate cancer. To further research advances the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) granted Peter Mac over $9 million in funding through the Investigator Grant scheme.
As the premier scientific funding body, NHMRC grants are notoriously difficult to secure and are highly competitive. We are delighted to announce the six successful Peter Mac researchers and their projects that will all help cancer patients in the future.
The funded research projects include better and more effective treatments for advanced prostate cancer, novel new treatments for T-cell lymphoma and acute myeloid leukaemia as well a project that aims to reveal how and why a cancer develops. The project will lead to better ways to treat, detect and prevent breast cancer in young women.
Other research projects include advances in the understanding of how we can inhibit cancer growth and survival through the manipulation of genes, how cell death and inflammation influence the body’s response to cancer and drawing on past patient samples to treat metastases with science-guided therapies.
Peter Mac’s Executive Director of Cancer Research, Professor Ricky Johnstone, said “I am incredibly proud of the calibre of research we put forward for funding.
“Peter Mac had one of the highest NHMRC success rate across the sector which speaks volumes to the talent we have at Peter Mac and our ability to cover the full spectrum of fundamental, clinical and health services research.
“I extend my congratulations to the successful researchers and their proposals which all listed below.”
- Associate Professor Arun Azad - Optimising radiopharmaceutical therapy to improve clinical outcomes in advanced prostate cancer
An innovative clinical trial that uses radiopharmaceuticals to target a protein called PSMA (prostate-specific membrane antigen), which is found on most prostate cancer cells. The research will identify effective new strategies for targeting PSMA with radiopharmaceuticals and look at both the genomic and imaging data in treatment sensitive and resistant advanced prostate cancer. This data will help to understand why some patients respond better to PSMAradiopharmaceuticals than others and will lead to better and more effective treatments for advanced prostate cancer.
- Professor Ricky Johnstone - Deregulated epigenetics and transcription in cancer
This research project will determine how we can inhibit cancer cell growth and survival, and regulate how our immune system responds to cancer through the manipulation of the proteins and pathways that control the expression of genes.
- Dr Najoua Lalaoui - Investigating the interplay between cell death and inflammation in human diseases
Cell death can occur during tissue damage but cell death is also a mechanism that allows old cells to be replaced by new cells. In some contexts, dying cells release inflammatory molecules that can be beneficial or detrimental to the body. This research proposal aims to study the complex interplay between cell death and inflammation. New treatment strategies can be identified when we understand the involvement of these processes in cancer and inflammatory diseases.
- Associate Professor Belinda Parker - Targeting crosstalk in the tumour microenvironment for precision cancer therapy
Cancer spread remains very difficult to target therapeutically. Past research by Belinda has focussed on modelling the cellular interactions that occur during cell spread to develop markers that predict the effectiveness of existing therapies. The research also aims to uncover new biological targets for treating aggressive cancer types. The NHMRC funding will drive this research into the clinical setting by using unique humanised models and examining patient samples to enable science-guided therapies for cancer patients.
- Professor Miles Prince - Novel approaches to the treatment and monitoring of patients with incurable haematological cancers
The aim of this research is to improve outcomes for patients with blood cancers through immune and targeted therapy; specifically, T cell lymphoma (TCL) and acute myeloid leukaemia (AML), both of which are frequently incurable. The research project will enable us to undertake completely novel clinical trials using treatments other than chemotherapy which will include genetically engineered human immune cells called CAR T-cells specifically designed for treating TCL and AML.
- Dr Peter Savas- Immunogenomic approach to breast cancer in young women
Breast cancer causes the highest number of disease related deaths in adult women under the age of 45. It is a difficult problem that is also becoming more common. To understand this disease better, we need a comprehensive and detailed approach. Using samples taken from real patients, this research will apply sophisticated technologies to reveal how a cancer develops. This may ultimately lead to better ways to treat, detect and prevent breast cancer in young women.
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Peter Mac physician Professor Fary Khan AM has been elected a member of the United States’ prestigious National Academy of Medicine (NAM).
Professor Khan is a lead Rehabilitation Physician at Peter Mac and Director of Rehabilitation Services at the Royal Melbourne Hospital. She has over 20 years’ experience in cancer, neurological, and trauma rehabilitation, and also has an interest in refugee health and disability. She was awarded the Member for the Order of Australia in 2022 for outstanding contribution to Rehabilitation Medicine and Research. She is current Vice President of the International Society of Physical and Rehabilitation Medicine, the Inaugural Academic Fellow for the Faculty of Rehabilitation Medicine at the RACP; and an elected Executive Board Member of the Rehabilitation Society of Australia and New Zealand.
Professor Khan is one of only 10 international members elected, alongside 90 domestic members.
Each of the new members was elected by current NAM members in recognition of significant contributions to medical sciences, health care and public health.
Professor Khan was elected for her work organising grassroots-level responses in under resourced countries, assisting people with disabilities who are inequitably affected by climate change-related disasters.
Working with organisations worldwide, NAM aims to address critical issues in health, science, medicine, and related policy, and inspire positive action by providing expert advice.
Peter Mac Chief Medical Officer Dr David Speakman extended his congratulations, “this is an impressive achievement for Professor Khan, whose work truly has an international reach. It is fitting that she should be acknowledged by her colleagues with this appointment.”
Speaking on the newly elected members, the National Academy of Medicine President Victor J. Dzau said: “this extraordinary class of new members is comprised of exceptional scholars and leaders who have been at the forefront of responding to serious public health challenges, combating social inequities, and achieving innovative discoveries”.
“Their expertise will be vital to informing the future of health and medicine for the benefit of us all. I am truly honoured to welcome these esteemed individuals to the National Academy of Medicine.”
Peter Mac congratulates to Professor Khan on this outstanding achievement.