The Albanese Government is providing $5 million to Professor Gail Risbridger and a team from Monash University, as a grant from the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) to develop CAR T cell therapy for prostate cancer.
CAR T cell therapy is an immunotherapy that involves taking the immune cells out of a patient’s body and giving those cells the genetic information they need to identify and attack cancer cells in the body.
CAR T cell therapy has successfully treated some forms of blood cancer, even at very advanced stages and when other treatments have failed, but the therapy has yet to be effective in treating solid cancers like prostate cancer.
Prostate cancer is the most commonly diagnosed cancer in Australia, with 1 in 6 men at risk of diagnosis by the age of 85.
Professor Risbridger’s approach will use new integrated methods of generating CAR T cells, a range of models to test them, and state-of-the-art imaging tools to bring this therapy to the clinic.
Professor Risbridger’s project is one of 10 projects to share in $50 million in funding through the NHMRC’s Synergy Grants.
Synergy Grants support outstanding teams of researchers, from a range of disciplines, to work together to answer major questions that cannot be answered by a single researcher.
Quotes attributable to Minister Butler:
“We are living through a supercharged period of discovery, especially in CAR T cell therapy.
“CAR T cell therapy is an immunotherapy that promises to turn medicine on its head, by unlocking the ability of a patient’s own immune system to find and destroy cancer and other disease.
“This is world leading health research and the Albanese Government is proud to fund this important work.”
Quotes attributable to NHMRC CEO Professor Steve Wesselingh:
“The Synergy Grant scheme supports high-performing research teams to tackle complex research questions and improve human health.
“These grants offer opportunities to foster collaboration between diverse researchers to ensure a range of skills and perspectives are brought together to solve a problem.
“This research is so important, and NHMRC hope to meet these health challenges now and into the future.”
