Search

A leading WA cancer researcher has been named the Cure Cancer 2026 Researcher of the Year for his groundbreaking work in paediatric leukaemia.

Newly published research from The Kids Research Institute Australia and The University of Western Australia has found a gel applied during surgery to treat sarcoma tumours is both safe and highly effective at preventing the cancer from growing back.

The Kids Research Institute Australia cancer researcher, Dr Jason Waithman, has been named Cancer Council WA’s 2021 Cancer Researcher of the Year.

Nick Gottardo MBChB FRACP PhD Co-Head, Brain Tumour Research team; Head of Oncology and Haematology, Perth Children’s Hospital nicholas.gottardo@

Chemotherapy is included in treatment regimens for many solid cancers, but when administered as a single agent it is rarely curative. The addition of immune checkpoint therapy to standard chemotherapy regimens has improved response rates and increased survival in some cancers. However, most patients do not respond to treatment and immune checkpoint therapy can cause severe side effects. Therefore, there is a need for alternative immunomodulatory drugs that enhance chemotherapy.

Event-free survival considers other adverse events in addition to mortality. It therefore provides a more complete understanding of the effectiveness and consequences of treatment than standard survival measures, but is rarely reported at the population level for childhood cancer.

Antibodies that target immune checkpoints such as cytotoxic T lymphocyte antigen 4, programmed cell death protein/ligand 1 are approved for treatment of multiple cancer types. 

Siblings of children with cancer have been shown to experience disruption in multiple domains including family, school, and friendships. Existing literature on siblings' experiences focuses on older children or on a broad range of ages.

Children receiving treatment for acute myeloid leukemia (AML) are at high risk of invasive fungal disease (IFD). Evidence from pediatric studies support the efficacy of antifungal prophylaxis in reducing the burden of IFD in children receiving therapy for AML, yet existing antifungal agents have specific limitations and comparative data to inform the optimal prophylactic approach are lacking.

Clinical management of breast cancer (BC) metastasis remains an unmet need as it accounts for 90% of BC-associated mortality. Although the luminal subtype, which represents >70% of BC cases, is generally associated with a favorable outcome, it is susceptible to metastatic relapse as late as 15 years after treatment discontinuation.