Milestone philanthropy

On Monday night I had the honour of again hosting the ACRF's Chairman's Dinner.

The highlight of the night was again getting to interview the annual grant recipients whose projects each received $3.5 million from the Australian Cancer Research Foundation.

Professor Clare Scott and Dr Kelly Rogers from the Walter & Eliza Hall Institute in Victoria spoke about the ACRF Program for Resolving Cancer Complexity and Therapeutic Resistance.  This multidisciplinary collaborative team will include 19 cancer experts and their teams from across the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute, who are accomplished leaders in breast, ovarian, lung and pancreatic cancers, acute and chronic leukaemias, lymphoma and myeloma. They will examine cancer at the single cell level to understand how such cells evolve and hopefully assist in the development of personalised treatments for these insidious diseases.

And from the Children’s Cancer Institute in Sydney, we met Prof Michelle Haber AM and A/Prof Mark Cowley who spoke on the establishment of the ACRF Child Cancer Liquid Biopsy Program. Liquid biopsies are far less invasive than traditional biopsies, making them less traumatic for children and more easy to administer multiple times over the course of cancer treatment. They have the added advantage of being much easier to administer than biopsies to the inside of bones and other hard to reach areas.

These researcher are part of a united effort in Australian oncology to move us towards a world of significantly less, perhaps one day no deaths from cancer. And they couldn't do it without the amazing philanthropic efforts of the ACRF and its supporters.

To find out more about the wonderful work that the ACRF do, and perhaps throw a few dollars their way, visit acrf.com.au