Researchers from the Centre for Cancer Biology (CCB) – an alliance between SA Pathology and the University of South Australia – have welcomed a $36,100 grant from Cops for Kids to help transform a storage room in UniSA’s flagship health research precinct into a much-need tissue culture facility.
The Tissue Culture Facility was developed through a joint funding initiative between Cops for Kids and Charlie’s Rainbow (Facebook).
Charlie’s Rainbow was founded by Kelly Stevens in honour of her son Charlie who died at the age of 3 from Acute Myeloid Leukemia (AML), an aggressive childhood cancer. The new Cops for Kids Tissue Culture Facility will help to advance research into two of the most common and aggressive childhood cancers worldwide – brain tumours and AML.
CCB Professor of Leukemia Biology Richard D’Andrea says the facility will be an invaluable resource for childhood cancer health researchers. “Tissue culture work is essential for our research because cellular immunotherapy is an emerging field in childhood cancer treatment and that involves growing and studying cells in a specialised laboratory space under sterile conditions.” Immunotherapy – using the patient’s own cells to fight cancer – is a much kinder treatment than chemotherapy and now considered the fourth pillar of cancer treatment alongside surgery, radiotherapy and chemotherapy.
Dr Lisa Ebert, Group Leader of Cancer Immunotherapy Research at CCB, will use the Cops for Kids Tissue Culture Facility to further her research into paediatric brain cancer, engineering CAR T-cells, a form of immunotherapy. “Our main focus is on a type of childhood brain cancer called DMG, or diffuse midline glioma, which is rare, but also uniformly fatal, usually within 12 months of diagnosis because it is inoperable,” Dr Ebert says.
Cops for Kids is privileged to be associated with all parties working to find more effective treatments for paediatric cancers.
Pictured outside the Cops for Kids Tissue Culture Facility
Drew Bynoe, Kelly Stevens, Professor Richard D’Andrea, Matthew Schar, Taryn Burke
