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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.
Two The Kids Research Institute Australia researchers have been awarded prestigious grants from the Raine Medical Research Foundation for projects in childhood cancer and newborn infection control.
The generous support of West Australians through Channel 7’s Telethon Trust will help support crucial child health research at The Kids Research Institute Australia in 2022.
Cancer researchers have narrowed-down the field of immunotherapy drugs which could be used to tackle a form of childhood brain cancer.
Kids born with Down syndrome are at high risk of an array of health problems. One of the lesser-known complications is their increased risk of childhood leukaemia.
Dr Laurence Cheung is doing everything he can to end the threat of childhood leukemia. His research has the potential to change countless lives, but he also has another important job – being a dad to three beautiful children.
In an Australian-first, The Kids Research Institute Australia researchers have developed a new tool that could improve outcomes for children with a highly aggressive type of brain cancer.
When three-year-old Flo Parker injured her hip on a camping trip five years ago, her parents thought it would be nothing more than a common childhood injury.
Cannabinoids are a group of chemicals that bind to receptors in the human body and, in turn, modulate the endocannabinoid system (ECS). They can be endogenously produced, synthetic, or derived from the plant Cannabis sativa L. Research over the past several decades has shown that the ECS is a cellular communication network essential to maintain multiple biological functions and the homeostasis of the body. Indeed, cannabinoids have been shown to influence a wide variety of biological effects, including memory, pain, reproduction, bone remodeling or immunity, to name a few. Unsurprisingly, given these broad physiological effects, alterations of the ECS have been found in different diseases, including cancer.
Immunotherapy has revolutionised the treatment of cancers by harnessing the power of the immune system to eradicate malignant tissue. However, it is well recognised that some cancers are highly resistant to these therapies, which is in part attributed to the immunosuppressive landscape of the tumour microenvironment (TME). The contexture of the TME is highly heterogeneous and contains a complex architecture of immune, stromal, vascular and tumour cells in addition to acellular components such as the extracellular matrix. While understanding the dynamics of the TME has been instrumental in predicting durable responses to immunotherapy and developing new treatment strategies, recent evidence challenges the fundamental paradigms of how tumours can effectively subvert immunosurveillance. Here, we discuss the various immunosuppressive features of the TME and how fine-tuning these mechanisms, rather than ablating them completely, may result in a more comprehensive and balanced anti-tumour response.