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Thursday, 10 December 2015

Research across Australia into how cancers begin and spread will be supported through a $2 million grant provided by the Australian Cancer Research Foundation (ACRF) to the Australian Synchrotron.

The grant, which The University of Western Australia Deputy Head Chemistry and Biochemistry Professor Charles Bond played a key role in securing, will be used to fund a new protein analysis detector at the Australian Synchrotron in Melbourne. The detector will analyse proteins in a tenth of the time it currently takes.

Professor Charles Bond said data from the detector would be able to be accessed remotely for experiments by researchers across Australia and would be used by researchers at UWA.

“The ACRF investment in the cancer research technology, available at only a handful of other synchrotron facilities around the world, will lead to better outcomes for people living with the disease,” Professor Bond said.

‘By increasing the capacity for drug development research in Australia, it is Australians with cancer who will be the first to benefit as novel treatments move from laboratories into clinical trials at our public hospitals.”

Professor Bond said proteins and large molecules essential to all living organisms, were crucial to understanding disease and treatment targets.

“With malfunctioning proteins causing many diseases, including cancer, arming researchers with clear representations of protein structures supports efforts to design drugs that target particular proteins, to boost their anti-cancer properties or suppress their cancer-enabling effects.’

The detector will be operational in 2017.

Media references

Jess Reid (UWA Media and Public Relations Officer)(+61 8) 6488 6876

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