From 28 May to 1 June, the world greatest minds in Cell and Gene Therapy will gather at the annual conference of the International Society of Cell and Gene Therapy in Melbourne.
For the first time, a contingent of 12 researchers and scientists from Professor John Rasko’s team at Royal Prince Alfred Hospital will be attending, thanks to support from Cure the Future.
The international Annual Meeting of the ISCT is being held this year in Melbourne and being in Australia presents a unique training opportunity for members of the The Department of Cell & Molecular Therapies team.
“…CMT will be afforded the opportunity to engage in a small group interactive learning and acquire practical knowledge first hand…”,
Afroditi Sdrolias, CMT Hospital Scientist
The Cell and Molecular Therapies team at RPA
“…Attendance will provide an extraordinary enhancement to our staff’s career development, provide an educational opportunity to learn new skills and potentially identify new collaborators…”
– Alice Chen and James Favaloro, CMT Hospital Scientists
Cure The Future is proud to support the team and contribute to an enhancement in their professional development and work.
Dr Gerard Chu is a PhD Student in Professor John Rasko’s
laboratory.
Gerard’s father was diagnosed with cancer when he was in Year 11 at school. His father’s health scare motivated Gerard to want to make a difference to the lives of people dealing with cancer. It is the inspiration behind him studying medicine and joining the research lab where he is today.
In 2018, Gerard received the Cure The Future/Rotary Fellowship.
This fellowship has provided Gerard with a living allowance
while waiting other scholarship funding.
The Fellowship has reduced financial pressure and allowed Gerard to
focus on his research rather than having to find other work for financial
support.
Completely focused on optimizing the effectiveness of
CAR T-cells in treating asbestos related (mesothelioma) and pancreatic cancer, Gerard, now in his
second year of a PhD.
Gerard’s research is transformative cell-based therapy, where immune cells are able to be re engineered, replicated and re applied to a patients body to target and reduce cancers.
‘Research is a lot of hard work’
Often hard work in research goes unrecognized. Gerard is
grateful for the support of like-minded individuals who value hard work and
medical research through the Cure the Future Fellowship.
Gerard’s research aims to deliver novel cellular therapies and have a positive impact on patients in clinical trials in Australia, patients who would otherwise have to seek alternative more lengthy and painful treatments.
‘I live for making a better world for my children, through my research, I am.’
Gerard’s vision is to harness the immune system to fight several diseases to help cure the future for all children.
Your support can help us continue to support amazing scientists like Gerard.
CAR T Cells are engineered to target cancer cells.
Cell therapy has come of age and CAR T therapy is leading the way.
“Chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cells are produced by harvesting and reprogramming healthy T cells from a cancer patient. Genetically modified cells are then manufactured in their billions and infused back into the patient. Once in the patient the CAR T cells act to seek, target and destroy cancerous cells. The process is described in the graphic below.
The CAR T therapy process. Image: Shutterstock
Early clinical data from leading clinical research centres around the world has highlighted the promise of CAR T cells for the targeted treatment of cancers such as leukaemia and lymphoma.
Our clinicians and scientists are currently working with international collaborators to develop anti-mesothelin CAR-T cells to initiate Phase I clinical trials to tackle some hard-to-treat cancers.
Led by Professor John Rasko AO, Australia’s leading Cell & Molecular Therapies expert, a team of research specialists will leverage the existing cell manufacturing infrastructure and expertise at Royal Prince Alfred Hospital in Sydney.
In Australia, at RPAH, the initial focus will be on the treatment of advanced pancreatic cancer, a first for Australian patients that could revolutionise outcomes for patients and their families living with many types of cancer.
The impact of using CAR T cells in treatment can be life saving for the patient.
You can be part of this historical ground-breaking global project and help Cure the Future – for your family and for families like yours, all over the world.
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.
Some of the World’s greatest medical advances have been made possible by individuals like you and me, making donations to help fund research. Every time our researchers discover something that brings us loser to our goal of curing genetically inherited diseases and cancers, I am reminded that it would not be possible with that support.
We need ongoing help and support to continue this pioneering research into Cell and Gene therapies, which are getting ever closer to finding a cure. The greater the investments we make now, the closer we be to a cure for genetically inherited disease.
Your support will help us deliver that possibility in years, rather than decades.
So with the End of Financial Year fast approaching, please remember that all donations to Cure The Future are Tax-Free.
So you can help us, yourself and your family.
Make a donation using a credit card or with a PayPal account using the button below.
