As part of Breast Cancer Awareness month we asked Associate Professor Goel, a passionate breast cancer researcher and clinician, what research is being conducted in his lab to improve outcomes for patients.
Associate Professor Goel is focussed on finding a way to overcome resistance to breast cancer treatment. Because cancer is the result of cells dividing uncontrollably, his research is looking at the cell cycle to understand how to overcome treatment resistance.
“By having a thorough understanding of the cell cycle and the proteins involved in each step of cell division, we can uncover new ways to stop breast cancer,” Associate Professor Goel said.
A new group of breast cancer therapies, called CDK4/6 inhibitors, are currently being used to target the cell cycle. These drugs have proven to be very effective for many patients, however this can change over time as cancers become resistant to the treatment.
The research Associate Professor Goel and his laboratory are conducing will help improve our understanding about these new treatments and why cancers develop resistance over time.
The group conduct what is called translational research because they study breast cancer in the laboratory to develop new insights, and then strive to translate their discoveries into better treatments for use in clinical practice.
Two of the lab studies Associate Professor Goel and his team have worked on have already made it into the clinic and are being trialled in patients.
“It is incredibly exciting to see a research concept you have been working on in the lab make it into the clinic, and potentially prolong patients’ lives,” he said.
“Improving the quality of life of breast cancer patients and helping them to live longer is always at the front of our minds when we conduct our research.”
Associate Professor Goel conducted his post-doctoral research at the Massachusetts General Hospital and was appointed to the faculty of the Dana-Farber and Harvard Medical School in Boston before he relocated back to Australia to work at Peter Mac.
Learn more about Associate Professor Goel’s research.
Long-term data shows the tremendous benefit provided by a new type of radiotherapy for people with inoperable renal cell carcinoma (kidney cancer) with remission sustained over five years.
Long-term data shows the tremendous benefit provided by a new type of radiotherapy for people with inoperable renal cell carcinoma (kidney cancer) with remission sustained over five years.
Associate Professor Shankar Siva, radiation oncologist at Peter Mac said, “The long term data supports the use of novel stereotactic ablative body radiotherapy (SABR) to treat inoperable primary renal cell carcinoma.
“This type of radiation was very effective with a 92 percent cancer specific survival at 5 years. Only 5.5 percent of patients' primary kidney cancer regrew after SABR at 5-years. The treatment was also able to maintain healthy kidney function.”
The long term efficacy and safety of this treatment was presented by Associate Professor Siva at the American Society of Radiation Oncology Meeting in San Antonio, USA and has been accepted for Publication in The Lancet Oncology.
“Renal cell carcinoma is increasing in incidence with our ageing population and unfortunately an operation to remove the cancer is not possible for many patients with kidney cancer.
“This leaves patients, especially those with larger primary tumours, with little to no treatment options until the development of SABR and the expansion of its use into kidney cancer.
“Through the data collected as part of the International Radiosurgery Oncology Consortium of the Kidney (IROCK) we have five year follow up data from 13 centres on 190 patients with primary renal cell carcinoma treated with SABR.
“The evidence is compelling, SABR should now form part of the treatment guidelines for primary renal cell carcinoma.
“Peter Mac was a leader in pioneering this new treatment in renal cell carcinoma and we are very proud to have helped advance patient care and improve outcomes.” Said Associate Professor Siva.
Contacts:
For more information contact the Peter Mac Communications team on 0417 123 048.
About Peter Mac
Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre is a world-leading cancer research, education and treatment centre and Australia’s only public health service solely dedicated to caring for people affected by cancer.
The Prostate Cancer Foundation (PCF) in the United States has awarded Peter Mac’s Dr Renu Eapen with its prestigious Michael & Lori Milken-PCF Young Investigator Award.
The Prostate Cancer Foundation (PCF) in the United States has awarded Peter Mac’s Dr Renu Eapen with its prestigious Michael & Lori Milken-PCF Young Investigator Award.
“My research explores how a new treatment that brings radiation directly to tumours can improve survival in patients with locally advanced prostate cancer,” said Dr Eapen, a Consultant Urologist in the Genitourinary Oncology Service at Peter Mac.
“This new treatment, called LuPSMA, uses lutetium as the radioactive substance to bind to the PSMA cell receptor found on surface of prostate cancer cells.
”Prostate cancer is the most commonly diagnosed cancer in Australia. Approximately 24,000 people will be diagnosed in Australia in 2022 and Dr Eapen’s research could lead to a new and better treatment for localised prostate cancer, potentially helping thousands of men receive a more effective and personalised treatment.
“LuPSMA is currently used to treat men with certain types of advanced metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer (mCRPC). It is believed that LuPSMA activates anti-cancer immune responses by killing tumour cells in a way that alerts the immune system.
“My study called LuTectomy will explore the efficacy and toxicity of using LuPSMA as the first form of treatment in patients with high-risk localized prostate cancer before they undergo radical prostatectomy.
“The research will examine changes in the tumour-immune biology in response to LuPSMA. It will also examine if and how LuPSMA treatment changes immune cell types in the tumour and whether immune system responses to LuPSMA are associated with clinical outcomes,” she said.
The PCF created the Young Investigator Awards program with one goal: to identify a cohort of future research leaders who will keep the field of prostate cancer research vibrant with new ideas.
We believe they have chosen an excellent recipient for the award – congratulations Dr Eapen!
Seven researchers at Peter Mac have been awarded 2022 Victorian Cancer Agency (VCA)’s Early and Mid-Career Fellowships.
The fellowships are designed to help support promising early career researchers who are undertaking high quality translational cancer research.
Translational research is the interface between laboratory-based research where fundamental discoveries are made and clinical research where treatments are tested in patients. It is effectively moving research from the laboratory to the clinic.
Professor Mark Dawson, Associate Director of Research Translation at Peter Mac said, “The research proposals are all outstanding and have the potential to change the way we treat and manage a range of cancers.”
Congratulations to the following mid-career research fellowship recipients:
Dr Garsed will use high-resolution molecular profiling and computational models to identify features associated with exceptionally good and poor survival, and determine the most important features by testing them in independent clinical samples. This study is designed to improve treatment decisions and outcome predictions at diagnosis, and inform the development of new treatment strategies for patients with ovarian cancer.
Dr Smith will develop an understanding of how melanoma cells adapt and change in response to therapy and will use this knowledge to find new ways to stop melanoma from developing resistance to treatment.
Currently a treatment that takes your own immune T-cells and genetically engineers them to fight cancer is being used to treat some blood cancers, but its effect in solid tumours is limited. Dr Slaney and her team will use novel mRNA vaccine technology as a platform to make these T-cells work in difficult solid cancers including pancreatic cancer.
Congratulations to the following early career research fellowship recipients:
Dr Fettke aims to use circulating tumour DNA to identify which advanced prostate cancer patients will respond to or develop resistance to Lutetium-PSMA (Lu-PSMA).
Unfortunately there are few treatment options available to treat AML and in this project Dr Lewis aims to understand the role of heme metabolism in leukaemia cells. Heme synthesis/production is altered in AML and so by gaining a better understanding of heme metabolism he aims to develop more effective treatments for AML.
This project aims to develop an immune based T cell therapy to specifically target the tumour cells by using universal donor T cells. It is hoped that this new therapy will improve patient outcomes.
Dr Wang will also use this knowledge to develop novel or new combination therapies for people that do not respond to current treatments.
For more information or an interview contact the Peter Mac Communications team on 0417 123 048.
“Brain-POP” will place Melbourne at the fore of brain cancer research and drive development of more targeted and personalised treatments.
The world-first clinical trial platform will hand scientists a powerful new tool to track how potential new therapies work. Tumour samples will be collected for comparison before and after treatment with novel therapies, to yield new insights into how they affect the brain.
With survival gains lagging those seen for other cancers, Dr Jim Whittle says Brain-POP (brain perioperative) was part of efforts to “radically change the way that drugs are developed and the way that clinical trials are run for brain cancer”.
“The Brain-POP platform offers a unique approach to help us test whether a drug actually gets into the brain and find out if it’s having the effect we want,” says Dr Whittle, who is Lab Head at The Brain Cancer Centre and also a Peter Mac oncologist.
“This is what we need to invest our efforts into - the most powerful and promising therapies, stopping the development of those that don’t work and delivering far better outcomes for brain cancer patients.
“We hope that by demonstrating the effectiveness of our unique trial method, we can scale Brain-POP nationally so that every patient diagnosed in Australia will in future have access to this new standard of care.”
The initiative, which has just received $16 million Victorian Government funding, will be led by The Brain Cancer Centre along with research partners WEHI, The Royal Melbourne Hospital (RMH), The Royal Children’s Hospital and also Peter Mac.
Minister for Innovation, Medical Research and the Digital Economy, The Hon Jaala Pulford MP, said the funding over four years would support a globally unique research program benefiting children, adolescents and adults with primary brain cancer and brain metastases.
"We urgently need to find more effective and curative treatments for brain cancers. As a global leader in cancer care and medical research, Victoria is perfectly positioned to lead this ground-breaking work," Minister Pulford said.
Professor Kate Drummond, RMH Director of Neurosurgery, said the integrated trial program would draw on expertise from researchers and clinicians across Melbourne’s biomedical precinct and "establish Victoria at the forefront of brain cancer research”.
One Australian is diagnosed with brain cancer every five hours and more children die from brain cancer in Australia than any other disease.
Contacts:
For more information contact the Peter Mac Communications team on 0417 123 048.
Or WEHI communications on 0475 751 811 / [email protected]