Our Impact Grant recipients Grant recipients Here are our grant recipients and you can find our current research projects here. Associate Professor Tao Liu Associate Professor UNSW and Group Leader - Gene Dysregulation Group at the Children’s Cancer Institute, Randwick. Associate Professor Tao Liu's project High-risk neuroblastoma cases with TERT oncogene rearrangement was one of two major research projects awarded $125,000 in funding by Neuroblastoma Australia for 2020. The funding from Neuroblastoma Australia will allow our team at Children’s Cancer Institute to identify the specific drivers of high-risk neuroblastoma with TERT oncogene rearrangement and demonstrate a novel therapy that specifically target these drivers. We hope that, if successful, the novel therapy can be taken into clinical trials, leading to better survival rates and better quality of life for children with this devastating childhood cancer. Associate Professor Tao Liu Neuroblastoma Australia and the Cancer Council NSW supported a previous project called The critical role of the long intergenic noncoding RNA MALAT1 in Neuroblastoma during which Dr Liu’s team uncovered the possibility of using MALAT1 as a new and effective target for neuroblastoma treatment. This means there is an opportunity to create new drugs that directly inhibit the activity of MALAT1 to stop neuroblastomas from spreading. Going forward, Dr Liu and his team will work on developing stable MALAT1-blocking compounds. If these blockers are successful in the lab, this could lay the foundation to start clinical trials testing this treatment with neuroblastoma patients. More information Associate Professor Tao Liu Article: Investigating a novel therapy for a problematic childhood cancer The Cancer Council NSW Dr Alla Dolnikov, PhD Principal Hospital Scientist, Blood and Marrow Transplant Laboratory, Sydney Children's Hospital. Associated Investigator, Children's Cancer Institute Australia. Senior Lecturer, School of Women's and Children's Health Faculty of Medicine, UNSW, Australia Dr Alla Dolnikov's project Using MYC inhibitors to potentiate CART cell therapy for neuroblastoma was one of two major research projects awarded $125,000 in funding by Neuroblastoma Australia for 2020. The project is researching a new way to make CAR T therapy more effective in treating neuroblastoma tumours by suppressing the MYC oncogene. Currently CAR T therapy which is seen as a promising way of using the body’s own immune system to tackle cancer cells has not worked on neuroblastoma tumours. But the award-winning research looks like there could be a way of changing this. More information Dr Alla Dolnikov UNSW Dr Toby Trahair Conjoint Lecturer in the School of Women’s & Children’s Health, Faculty of Medicine, UNSW. He has appointments as a staff specialist in paediatric haematology and oncology at the Kids Cancer Centre, Sydney Children’s Hospital and a Clinical Research Fellow at the Children’s Cancer Institute. Dr Toby Trahair and Dr Jamie Fletcher are currently leading two projects supported by Neuroblastoma Australia: Characterisation of high-risk neuroblastoma models to support translational research Optimisation of high-risk neuroblastoma model development More information Dr Toby Trahair Video of Dr Toby Trahair Article: Dr Toby Trahair - childhood cancer research fundraiser with Tour de Cure Children’s Cancer Institute, Randwick Dr Jamie Fletcher Project Leader, The Children’s Cancer Institute, Randwick Dr Jamie Fletcher and Dr Toby Trahair, are currently leading two projects supported by Neuroblastoma Australia: Characterisation of high-risk neuroblastoma models to support translational research Optimisation of high-risk neuroblastoma model development More information Dr Jamie Fletcher Dr Jamie Fletcher Children’s Cancer Institute, Randwick Dr David Ziegler Senior researcher at the Children’s Cancer Institute, Randwick and Head of Clinical trials at the Kids Cancer Centre, Sydney Children’s Hospital (Randwick). Dr Ziegler will be running the CBL137 single agent clinical trials for children at leading children’s cancer centres in the United States and at Sydney Children’s Hospital, Randwick, conducted through the US-based Children’s Oncology Group (COG), the largest children’s cancer study group in the world. This is the first time that a COG trial of this sort would be made available to Australian children. More information Children’s Cancer Institute, Randwick Kids Cancer Centre, Sydney Children’s Hospital Professor Glenn Marshall Senior Oncologist, Kids Cancer Centre, Sydney Children’s Hospital, Randwick Head of Translational Research and Molecular Carcinogenesis Program, Children’s Cancer Institute Neuroblastoma Australia has funding the pre-clinical research for CBL137 in combination with other targeted therapies at the Children’s Cancer Institute, Randwick through groups led by Professors Michelle Haber, Murray Norris and Glenn Marshall. More information Professor Glenn Marshall Experimental drug giving hope to kids with cancer (SBS) A way to target the Achilles heel of neuroblastoma (CCIA) Neuroblastoma our battle (CCIA) Children’s Cancer Institute, Randwick Professor Rod Hicks Professor of Medicine and Radiology at the University of Melbourne and Director of the Centre for Cancer Imaging at the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre in Melbourne, Australia. Dr Hicks is currently leading a project which aims to generate a more faithful model of NMYC driven neuroblastoma for therapeutic testing (by transfecting tumour cells arising from MYCN mice with a key receptor) to evaluate the efficacy of radionuclide therapy alone and in combination with other therapies. More information Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre Professor Rod Hicks Dr Christina Signorelli Post-Doctoral Research Fellow with the Behavioural Sciences Unit, School of Women’s and Children’s Health at UNSW Sydney and the Sydney Children’s Hospital. Dr Signorelli received a grant from Neuroblastoma Australia in 2019 for her project Improving the long-term health of Australian childhood cancer survivors. This study will be the first Australian database recording long term effects of childhood cancer treatments on survivors. Dr Signorelli has been a researcher at the Behavioural Sciences Unit, Kids Cancer Centre, for over five years and has been involved in a large body of work examining Australian childhood cancer survivors’ physical and mental health. She has been developing a model of care to reduce survivors’ risk of chronic health problems and the natural next step was to develop a national childhood cancer database, to investigate the long-term health risks associated with cancer and its treatments. ‘Ultimately, the wealth of information collected in this database will be used to help us create resources and interventions to manage the impact of treatment-related conditions in survivors, and inform future treatment protocols to prevent some of these conditions altogether.’ Dr Christina Signorelli In addition to Dr Christina Signorelli, this study will also be led by Prof Claire Wakefield and Prof Richard Cohn at the Kids Cancer Centre, located within Sydney Children’s Hospital and UNSW Sydney. More information Spotlight on Dr Christina Signorelli Dr Christina Signorelli UNSW Sydney Kids Cancer Centre, Sydney Children’s Hospital Professor Michelle Haber Executive Director, The Children’s Cancer Institute, Randwick Neuroblastoma Australia has funding the pre-clinical research for CBL137 in combination with other targeted therapies at the Children’s Cancer Institute, Randwick through groups led by Professors Michelle Haber, Murray Norris and Glenn Marshall. More information Professor Michelle Haber Professor Michelle Haber Experimental drug giving hope to kids with cancer (SBS) A way to target the Achilles heel of neuroblastoma (CCIA) Neuroblastoma our battle (CCIA) Children’s Cancer Institute, Randwick Professor Murray Norris Deputy Director, The Children’s Cancer Institute Neuroblastoma Australia has funding the pre-clinical research for CBL137 in combination with other targeted therapies at the Children’s Cancer Institute, Randwick through groups led by Professors Michelle Haber, Murray Norris and Glenn Marshall. More information Professor Murray Norris Experimental drug giving hope to kids with cancer (SBS) A way to target the Achilles heel of neuroblastoma (CCIA) Neuroblastoma our battle (CCIA) Children’s Cancer Institute, Randwick