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News & Events

Childhood cancer story: How Rennae's child's cancer diagnosis affected her family

Rennae's son Samuel was diagnosed with stage 4 neuroblastoma 13 years ago, and was originally given a 20% chance of survival. She bravely shares their story.

News & Events

Funding boost for cancer, antimicrobial resistance, and pain management treatments

The Kids Research Institute Australia researchers will share in $2.3 million awarded by the Western Australian Department of Health Innovation Seed Fund.

News & Events

Associate Professor Nick Gottardo awarded Cure Brain Cancer Foundation Innovation Grant 2017

The Kids cancer researcher & clinician Dr Nick Gottardo has been announced as the recipient of an Innovation Grant from the Cure Brain Cancer Foundation.

New treatments on horizon for rarest child brain cancers

The Telethon Kids Cancer Centre has a suite of world-leading research projects to unlock new treatments for childhood cancers.

Research

Local therapy with combination TLR agonists stimulates systemic anti-tumor immunity and sensitizes tumors to immune checkpoint blockade

Francois W. Joost Ben Lizeth Rachael Tao Omar Rwandamuriye Lesterhuis Wylie Orozco Morales Zemek Wang Elaskalani FR WJL BW LO RZ TW OE B. Tech., MSc,

Research

Invasive fungal disease and antifungal prophylaxis in children with acute leukaemia: a multicentre retrospective Australian cohort study

Invasive fungal disease is a common and important complication in children with acute myeloid leukaemia (AML). We describe the epidemiology of IFD in a large multicentre cohort of children with AML.

Research

ErbB4 in the brain: Focus on high grade glioma

The epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) family of receptor tyrosine kinases (RTKs) consists of EGFR, ErbB2, ErbB3, and ErbB4. These receptors play key roles in cell proliferation, angiogenesis, cell migration, and in some cases, tumor promotion.

Research

Small-molecule screen reveals synergy of cell cycle checkpoint kinase inhibitors with DNA-damaging chemotherapies in medulloblastoma

Medulloblastoma (MB) consists of four core molecular subgroups with distinct clinical features and prognoses. Treatment consists of surgery, followed by radiotherapy and cytotoxic chemotherapy. Despite this intensive approach, outcome remains dismal for patients with certain subtypes of MB, namely, MYC-amplified Group 3 and TP53-mutated SHH. Using high-throughput assays, six human MB cell lines were screened against a library of 3208 unique compounds. We identified 45 effective compounds from the screen and found that cell cycle checkpoint kinase (CHK1/2) inhibition synergistically enhanced the cytotoxic activity of clinically used chemotherapeutics cyclophosphamide, cisplatin, and gemcitabine.

Research

RAD51-Mediated DNA Homologous Recombination Is Independent of PTEN Mutational Status

PTEN mutation occurs in a variety of aggressive cancers and is associated with poor patient outcomes. Recent studies have linked mutational loss of PTEN to reduced RAD51 expression and function, a key factor involved in the homologous recombination (HR) pathway. However, these studies remain controversial, as they fail to establish a definitive causal link to RAD51 expression that is PTEN-dependent, while other studies have not been able to recapitulate the relationship between the PTEN expression and the RAD51/HR function.

Research

RUNX2 regulates leukemic cell metabolism and chemotaxis in high-risk T cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia

T cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia (T-ALL) is an aggressive hematologic malignancy with inferior outcome compared with that of B cell ALL. Here, we show that Runt-related transcription factor 2 (RUNX2) was upregulated in high-risk T-ALL with KMT2A rearrangements (KMT2A-R) or an immature immunophenotype. In KMT2A-R cells, we identified RUNX2 as a direct target of the KMT2A chimeras, where it reciprocally bound the KMT2A promoter, establishing a regulatory feed-forward mechanism.