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Congratulations to reNEW Melbourne AI Associate Professor Rachel Conyers, who has been awarded a $3 million (AUD) Genomics Health Futures Mission grant from the Australian Government Medical Research Future Fund (MRFF) to lead a national initiative aimed at improving the safety and effectiveness of cancer treatments for children and young people.
Based at the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute (MCRI), Associate Professor Conyers and her team will use the funding to personalise chemotherapy, antibiotics, antifungals and other cancer therapies, reducing harmful side effects and improving treatment response.
While remission rates for many childhood cancers now exceed 85 per cent, most young patients still experience serious side effects from their medications – often due to genetic factors. In some cases, these treatments can even prove ineffective.
The team will establish the Australian Pharmacogenetic Paediatric Oncology Network for Drug Safety (AUSPOND), a national framework that will collect and analyse data from paediatric oncology sites across the country.
“AUSPOND will take information from all Australian paediatric oncology sites and create a database that captures the variety of adverse reactions that can occur when a young patient requires a cancer therapy,” Conyers said.
Working in collaboration with Professor Mirana Ramialison from reNEW’s Bioinformatics Hub, also based at MCRI, the project will also apply artificial intelligence and machine learning to better match treatments to individual patients.
“Our previous studies showed patients experienced multiple medication side effects within weeks of starting cancer medications – some of which severely reduced their quality of life,” Conyers said.
“We want young cancer patients to recover as smoothly as possible and we can help make this a reality by using machine learning to pair hospital records to genomic information, enabling more personalised care.”
The European Molecular Biology Laboratory’s European Bioinformatics Institute (EMBL-EBI) will also contribute to the project. Findings will be used to inform future clinical practice and will form the basis of an education program for healthcare professionals.
The Medical Research Future Fund (MRFF) is a $22 billion long-term investment by the Australian Federal Government to support Australian health and medical research.
