Mid-career researcher recognised by Victorian Cancer Agency

Congratulations to Dr Daniel Gough for receiving a Mid-Career Research Fellowship from the Victorian Cancer Agency (VCA) for his research in developing new therapies for small cell lung cancer (SCLC).

This is an amazing achievement for Dr Gough, Research Group Head of the STAT Cancer Biology group, who was awarded $600,000 for the four-year fellowship to help find new treatments for SCLC and prevent the spread of the disease.

The fellowships support high-quality cancer research conducted by mid-career researchers, who can demonstrate clear evidence of translational research capacity.

The VCA provides the funding as a means of enhancing competitiveness of mid-career researchers, to enable them to leverage further funding from granting bodies or industry.

“It is a great honour to be awarded this mid-career fellowship from the Victorian Cancer Agency,” said Dr Gough.

“It will enable me to expand my small cell lung cancer research program and contribute to the rapid global advances in understanding the drivers of this disease and defining new treatments.”

Dr Daniel Gough

Developing new therapies to improve small cell lung cancer patient outcomes

SCLC patients initially respond to front line platinum-based therapy, but then rapidly relapse with a uniformly fatal disease.

This program will take advantage of the team’s unique pre-clinical models coupled with drug and genetic screening to identify new therapies that can overcome platinum resistance and define new therapeutic options for each of the newly described subgroups of SCLC.

Finally, the team will determine the ability of immune modulation to block metastatic spread and improve patient responses to the new classes of immune based therapies.

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