Professor Terry Johns, head of the The Kids Cancer Centre
The Kids Research Institute Australia’s cancer researchers will use funds raised in the name of a brave three-year-old girl to launch a new assault on the devastating form of childhood cancer which took her life.
Sindi Simic died in 2013, two months short of her fourth birthday and two years after being diagnosed with brainstem glioma – a rare type of childhood brain cancer which accounts for about 10 per cent of all childhood brain tumours.
Brainstem glioma mainly affects children under the age of ten and is nearly always lethal. As the cancer progresses, affected children lose multiple functions including the ability to walk, feed themselves, and breath efficiently.
The cancer is extremely difficult to treat due to its location in the brainstem, and current chemotherapy and radiation treatments have made little impact.
Now researchers from The Kids Research Institute Australia will use funds raised in Sindi’s name to try to uncover new therapies to tackle the disease. More than $111,000 raised by fundraising charity The Adventurers at their recent BrainChild Ball will go to Sindi’s Fund, established to kickstart a research project into brainstem glioma.
The project, a Western Australian first, will be led by Professor Terry Johns, head of the The Kids Cancer Centre, and Dr Raelene Endersby, co-head of Brain Tumour Research at the Institute and a specialist in paediatric brain cancer.
Professor Johns, who is one of Australia’s leading researchers into brainstem glioma, said growing knowledge about the cancer over the past few years had offered new hope for those seeking to find a cure.
“The time is now right to take this knowledge and transform it into new therapies for this rare brain cancer,” he said.
“This amazing gift from Sindi’s Fund will allow us to conduct new research into brainstem glioma, looking for novel effective treatments. Together, we look forward to tackling the challenge of finding cures for this terrible disease.”
See The Adventurers' media release for more information.
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