Six big ideas for beating brain cancer

The University of Newcastle’s Mark Hughes Foundation Centre for Brain Cancer Research (MHF Centre) has announced $720,000 in funding for six research projects. The funding is part of the latest MHF Centre Innovation Grant Rounds, where researchers are encouraged to ‘think big’ and be awarded up to $120,000 to fund blue-sky research into brain cancer. In all, 47 applications from across the country were submitted for a diverse array of research projects, with MHF Centre Director and practising radiation oncologist Professor Mike Fay calling the six to receive funding “the best of an absolutely top-tier range of applications”. The research projects to receive funding are:

1. Children’s Cancer Institute’s Dr Ernest Moles, who will use new technology to selectively treat diffuse midline glioma with improved efficacy and low-toxicity — two major barriers to fighting this deadly childhood brain cancer.
2. Chris O’Brien Lifehouse and Royal Prince Alfred Hospital’s Dr Laveniya Satgunaseelan, who will lead a project looking at new ultra-fast brain tumour diagnostics — aiming to reduce anxious wait times for patients and put treating doctors on the front foot by offering a diagnosis immediately after surgery.
3. Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre’s Dr Neda Haghighi, who will lead a multi-centre study exploring if using three smaller pre-surgery doses (rather than one) of radiotherapy can lead to better outcomes and less impact on quality of life in secondary brain cancer.
4. Tumour Immunology Laboratory at QIMR (Queensland Institute of Medical Research) Berghofer’s Dr Paulo Martins, who will lead a project investigating the use of CAR T cell therapy for glioblastoma — an aggressive and deadly form of brain cancer. (Martins has demonstrated that CAR T cells can be generated from third-party donors and effectively target glioblastoma cells, work that constitutes a critical step toward a future clinical trial — bringing hope for new treatment options for patients facing the disease.)
5. The University of Newcastle and Hunter Medical Research Institute Drug Repurposing and Medicines Research Program’s Associate Professor Paul Tooney, who will re-purpose existing medicines to stop the DNA repair that underlies treatment resistance and destroy cancer cells that remain after surgery.
6. A Walter and Eliza Hall Institute and Monash Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences collaborative team (including Dr Duong Nhu), who will initiate a Trojan-horse approach for anti-cancer drugs to help them cross the blood-brain barrier to kill high-grade brain tumours.

“It’s exciting that the MHF Centre received so many applications for these Innovation grants which means there is momentum being created and researchers want to work in this space, which for years we didn’t have,” Fay said. “This movement in the brain cancer space is exciting for us all, especially brain cancer patients and their families, as it gives us real hope that better outcomes are just around the corner.”

Image caption: Mark and Kirralee Hughes with The University of Newcastle’s Associate Professor Paul Tooney, a recipient of a 2025 MHF Innovation grant. (source: The University of Newcastle)