Your gift this Christmas can help turn more promising discoveries into potential new treatments
Please help save lives and prevent immeasurable heartache for families in Australia and beyond.
A ‘Eureka’ moment. That’s what people often imagine when a scientific breakthrough occurs. But, as any scientist will tell you, that’s not generally how medical research works.
Progress comes in incremental steps when you ask questions, find answers you expect (or don’t), adapt accordingly and collaborate with colleagues internationally.
So, what happened to Professor Stacey Edwards and Professor Juliet French and their team is both exceptional and exciting.
However, what they call their ‘Eureka’ moment, didn’t come from nowhere. It was the result of seven years of hard work, trying to find new ways to diagnose and treat breast cancer.
Their discovery has made waves around the world. Yet there is no funding for the next stage of their work.
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Eureka!
Over the last few years, new treatments have emerged for breast cancer, transforming survival rates. However, even after successful treatment, 30% of women with hormone receptor-positive (HR+) breast cancer see their cancer return. We now know that cancer cells can survive undetected and start growing again, years later.
Professor Edwards and the research team’s ‘Eureka’ moment offers hope of a new approach.
They identified an RNA molecule called BRRIAR which can trigger the immune system to find and destroy ‘hidden’ breast cancer cells in HR+ breast cancer. But they kept hitting dead ends as they worked in the lab to introduce the molecule into the HR+ breast cancer cells.
They tried putting a synthetic copy of the RNA molecule into cells. That night, they left the lab that night with no great hope that the results would be different.
But they were.
“The following day we went in to see the results. The cancer cells were literally gone. They were all destroyed.
Completely obliterated. The healthy cells were unchanged.”
The journey from bench to bedside is harder than ever.
Research teams want their work to benefit patients as quickly as possible. But translational research—the process which turns a discovery into a treatment—takes time and requires investment.
With medical research in the grip of a funding crisis, your support is needed more than ever.
This Christmas, our goal is to raise $149,000. Please help promising discoveries move forward and potentially become lifesaving new treatments.
Ways to donate
Your donation goes directly to medical research at QIMR Berghofer.
Phone
Free call: 1800 993 000
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Account number: 000476
Account Name: QIMR Berghofer Donations
Reference: (Surname & initials or Donor ID)
supportus@qimrb.edu.au
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
QIMR Berghofer acknowledges the Traditional and Cultural custodians of the lands, waters, and seas across Queensland, pay our respects to Elders past and present, and recognise the role of current and emerging leaders in shaping a better health system. We recognise the First Nations peoples in Queensland are both Aboriginal peoples and Torres Strait Islander peoples and support the cultural knowledge, determination, and commitment of First Nations communities in caring for health and wellbeing for millennia.
DISCLAIMER
While QIMR Berghofer makes every effort to make sure the information on this website is accurate and informative, the information is not professional or medical advice. The information on this website is general in nature and based on the information available at the time of publication. You should obtain advice relevant to your particular circumstances from a health professional.