Taking 'trial and error' out of epilepsy treatment

Neural architecture of an organoid. Neuronal cell bodies are red,
dendrites are green, axons are white, blue labels the nucleus of
astrocytes and senescent cells.
Image: Ben Rollo, PERSIST Associate Investigator

Enabling innovative research that cuts across multiple scientific and clinical disciplines in order to address urgent unmet health care needs is what the Medical Research Future Fund (MRFF) scheme was designed to do, and is doing exactly that with its recently announced funding for a project to help patients with epilepsy.

By combining their expertise in  human stem cell biology, clinical epilepsy and artificial intelligence scientists from the University of Queensland and Monash University will identify effective treatments for people with epilepsy more efficiently.

Personalised medicine investigation for rare thyroid cancers

Dr James Lee

Dr James Lee from the Department of Surgery was recently awarded a $120,000 philanthropic grant from the The Aftershock Foundation, a not-for-profit  organisation in the rare cancer space. The gift agreement includes a further $100,000 in 2020, bringing the total to $220,000.

The group was founded by Suzanne Neate, following the loss of her mother to metastatic medullary thyroid cancer. Thyroid cancer is now the 7th most commonly diagnosed cancer in women overall, and is on the rise.

Perspective: What will personalised medicine be worth by 2020?

New research indicates that the core personalized medicine market will be worth over $149 billion by 2020 with a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 8.74%.

"The total personalised targeted therapeutic market, for all indications, will grow at a CAGR of 6.47% over the next five years. Strong vertical growth in the companion diagnostic segment however will see a CAGR of 23.71% to 2020, mainly coming from oncology, cardiovascular and infectious disease (HIV/HCV) tests. Advancing technologies within the liquid biopsy market is also driving the market and will see strategic growth over the next five years with a CAGR of 20.6%. The two segments of the liquid biopsy market are tumor cell enrichment products and tumor cell detection technologies."

Reference