Brain cancer researchers awarded $18m in funding for next-gen treatment

The collaboration will bring together leading researchers and clinicians from across Australia to tackle one of the biggest challenges in brain cancer treatment: the blood-brain barrier, a natural protective shield that prevents most medicines from reaching the brain. 

Backed by the Medical Research Future Fund, the project includes the RMH, WEHI, The Brain Cancer Centre, Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre, the Monash Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences, The University of Queensland and the University of Technology Sydney. 

The team will explore innovative ways to deliver cancer-fighting drugs into the brain, with the aim of developing a new class of drugs and improving treatment options for people with aggressive brain cancers. 

Professor Kate Drummond, Director of Neurosurgery at the RMH and lead investigator on the project, says: 

“The blood brain barrier remains one of the least understood and under-researched biological structures in the human body. 

“To really change this and give patients the improved treatments they deserve, we need the type of breakthrough ideas and national coordination that underpins this research collaboration.” 

The blood-brain barrier strictly controls what can enter the brain to prevent toxins and infections from passing through.  

But this barrier is so fiercely protective, it also blocks around 98 per cent of cancer drugs from entering the brain. 

Chief Investigator Professor Guillaume Lessene, a Division Head and Associate Director of Therapeutic Discovery at WEHI, says treatment options are particularly dire for patients with glioblastoma and diffuse midline glioma. 

“Brain tumours represent a leading cause of cancer-related death in Australians aged under 40,” Prof Lessene says. 

“Therapies that have driven breakthroughs in other cancers offer little hope for these patients, meaning survival rates for brain cancer have barely shifted in decades. 

“Our project will deploy a revolutionary strategy to deliver drugs directly into the brain and tackle the problem at the source – the formidable blood-brain barrier.”