‘Life Re-Engineered’

Our own Prof. John Rasko AO has delivered the ABC’s prestigious Boyer Lectures for 2018 – in which he explains something about the research we are doing into Cell and Gene Therapies.

He examines the social and moral impact of these revolutionary genetic and cell-based technologies on our lives and the power of gene therapy to cure disease, prolong life and change the course of human evolution.

This link will take you watch the lecture on ABC iView. Please come back soon!

“We stand at the start of a revolution that may alter the very fabric of our being and the essence of what it means to be human, Reproductive technologies and gene and cell-based technologies offer the possibility of prolonging life and curing disease – even controlling our evolution as a species.”

Professor John Rasko AO

Across this series of four outstanding lectures, Professor Rasko explores issues such as:

How advances in biomedicine, such as prenatal testing and gene therapy, have revived the debate around eugenics – a concept poisoned by its association with the Nazis. How gene therapies will not only enable us to cure inheritable diseases but to re-engineer ourselves at the most basic level. Why stem cell research has had such a scandal-prone history, promising the dawn of regenerative medicine but delivering few therapeutic wonders. And whether having the power to re-engineer life gives us the right to do so — a question Mary Shelley posed 200 years ago in her novel Frankenstein.

Cure The Future Cocktail Party 2018

‘Dreams do come true’

Prof. John Rasko AO and Mercia Bush with her painting ‘Dreams do come true’

– inspired by the cells of a human retina, in celebration of a cell and gene therapy which can cure an inherited form of blindness.

Nearly 100 guests gathered at the new Luke’s Kitchen in Waterloo on Thursday 16th August for some delicious canapes by Luke and his ‘Test Kitchen’, paired with some fabulous wines by top Margaret River winery and long term CTF supporters Pierro.

MC Tim Gilbert welcomed existing supporters, new faces, Board members – and some of the scientists & researchers from the Centenary Institute – whose work Cure The Future sponsor.

Our ever popular Chairperson Diane Langmack presented a Cure The Future/Rotary Fellowship to Dr. Gerard Chu for his research studies into Cancer.

We also raised nearly $25,000 at the auction thanks to our generous sponsors, with prizes including 3 rooms at the new Sheraton Four Points Opening night, weekends at The Byron & Cloud 9 and a painting of retina cells by Mercia Bush called ‘Dreams Do Come True’.

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Dr Xuiyan Wang is a well-respected scientist from the prestigious Cell Therapy and Cell Engineering Facility, at the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, New York.

Her expertise is in the area of gene and cell therapies, specifically using a patient’s own immune system to fight diseases, including cancer.

Xuiyan contributed to our understanding with constructive information and insider knowledge – knowledge which would not be accessible from just reading published Journal articles. Her visit was not only productive, but has been instrumental for establishing a rapport and network between internationally renowned Laboratories, both of whom are currently involved together in the International Car-T Mesothelin research project.

Xuiyan also attended the Thalassaemia Society of NSW 40th year celebration, where our Director Professor John Rasko gave an address.

Our laboratories look forward to a continued collaboration into the future – to establish a service where the latest therapies are available to Australian patients.

Computer biologist receives research accolade

Dr Ulf Schmitz, a bioinformatician within the Gene & Stem Cell Therapy Program at the Centenary Institute, received a prestigious accolade for his recent published work on novel gene regulation published in the journal Genome Biology.

Ulf’s paper received a recommendation from the F1000 Faculty which identifies and rates the best published research articles in the world.

Dr Schmitz, who uses computer code and high performance computer clusters to make sense of big data, discovered that intron retention, which is a form of alternative splicing of messenger RNA, is an evolutionarily conserved mechanism of gene regulation.

Ulf and colleagues studied white blood cells from 5 different vertebrate species (human, mouse, dog, chicken and zebrafish). They concluded that intron retention acts to increase gene regulatory complexity in vertebrates. Ulf is now extending this study to examining leukaemia samples to determine if intron retention regulates the expression of cancer-specific genes.

Dr Teresa Anderson CE SLHD; Ms Stacey Wong; Mr Jack Saenprasert; Prof John Rasko AO; Prof Ron Trent, Head of Genetics RPAH