Beat Cancer Project awards nearly $3 million in funding to South Australian researchers

Cancer Council’s Beat Cancer Project has awarded nearly $3million in research funding to improve the lives of all South Australians impacted by cancer. 

A total of 13 new projects have been funded in the latest round of grants across a range of cancers, focusing on better ways to detect, treat and live beyond the disease.

Projects funded include a Principal Research Fellowship to Professor Michael Sorich from Flinders University to develop an online tool to personalise anti-cancer medicines for patients and an Early Career Research Fellowship to Dr Krzysztof Mrozik from the University of Adelaide and SAHMRI to refine treatments for multiple myeloma.

Six 12-month Project Grants were also awarded which included funding to investigate new ways to diagnose metastasised endometrial cancer and funding to improve T-cell treatment in solid tumours.

With 1 in 2 Australians diagnosed with cancer by the age of 85, Cancer Council SA Chief Executive Lincoln Size said that research is vital in improving cancer survival and detection rates for future generations of South Australians.

“Cancer Council’s Beat Cancer Project is a flagship collaboration between Cancer Council SA, the State Government, SAHMRI and the Universities with additional funding support from the Federal Government. It enables us to fund the state’s best and brightest cancer researchers to work towards the next cancer breakthrough.”

“Since it started, Cancer Council’s Beat Cancer Project has funded nearly 250 cancer research initiatives and continues to be the single largest cancer research investment in the state outside of the Federal Government.”

“We are incredibly proud of the work done through Cancer Council’s Beat Cancer Project and congratulate the latest recipients on receiving the funding, which we believe will translate to better health outcomes and cancer survival rates for all South Australians,” he said.

Interviews with individual researchers can be arranged on request by contacting the relevant institutions media contact.

Beat Cancer Project Fellowships (across 3 years)

Principal Research Fellowships
Professor Michael Sorich | Flinders University | $596,009
Cancer Treatment Big Data: Predicting and understanding patient-specific treatment benefits, harms and prognosis.

Associate Professor Luke Selth | Flinders University | $597,196
Understanding and overcoming therapy resistance in lethal prostate cancer.

Mid Career Research Fellowships
Dr Ilaria Stefania Pagani | SAHMRI and University of Adelaide | $300,000
Identifying and exploiting metabolic dependencies for improved therapeutic outcomes in chronic myeloid leukaemia patients.

Dr Stephanie Reuter Lange | University of South Australia | $300,000
Optimising cancer therapy through development of evidence-based dose individualisation strategies.

Early Career Research Fellowships 
Dr Madelé van Dyk | Flinders University | $240,000
Evaluating the capacity and benefit of precision medicine strategies to account for inter-patient variability with anti-cancer drugs used for advanced cancers.

Dr Krzysztof Mrozik | The University of Adelaide and SAHMRI | $240,000
Novel drug delivery approaches to improve the quality of life and survival of patients with multiple myeloma.

Research Project Awards ($100,000 across 12 months)

Dr Craig Wallington-Beddoe | Flinders University
Investigating Desmoglein-2 as a superior biomarker and therapeutic target for multiple myeloma.

Dr Iain Comerford | The University of Adelaide
Improving T-cell homing to solid tumours.

Professor Peter Hoffmann | University of South Australia
Defining a molecular signature for endometrial cancer staging.

Professor Timothy Hughes | The University of Adelaide and SAHMRI
Developing an artificial intelligence-based algorithm to enable a risk-adapted approach to frontline therapy in chronic myeloid leukaemia (CML).

Professor Caroline Miller | The University of Adelaide and SAHMRI
Artificially-sweetened beverages, fruit juice and water consumption: the unresolved substitution effects from sugar-sweetened beverage policy.

Associate Professor Luke Selth | Flinders University.
Targeting microRNA-regulated tumour plasticity to improve prostate cancer outcomes.

Infrastructure Award (across 12 months)

Professor Kim Moretti | SALHN | $75,000
Prostate cancer in South Australia – moving the clinical registry forward.