Regional input into world-leading medical breakthroughs have been put in the spotlight on the Sunshine Coast.
To mark 80 years of pioneering medical research, a team from QIMR Berghofer have been travelling the state updating supporters, partners and health providers on current studies and reminding them of the importance of the regions.
QIMR Berghofer CEO and Director Fabienne Mackay told a group at The Wharf Mooloolaba that the Sunshine Coast region had been a crucial supporter of the Institute’s groundbreaking research over the past 80 years.
Professor Mackay said the ties included a series of landmark studies spanning two decades from the mid-1980s, when hundreds of volunteer participants from Nambour helped QIMR Berghofer researchers prove regular daily sunscreen use could prevent skin cancers, including deadly melanomas.
She said these findings were a “game changer” for public health, and helped provide the scientific basis for skin cancer prevention policies and campaigns around the world to this day, such as the “Slip, Slop, Slap” campaign.
Also at the event, Associate Professor Michelle Wykes detailed advances in the “Masterswitch” cancer research being undertaken to target advanced bowel cancer.
A/Professor Wykes, Group Leader of QIMR Berghofer’s Molecular Immunology Lab, said stemming from her discovery of the “Masterswitch” antibody, extensive preclinical tests in the lab found it could turn on a key type of immune cell which attacked cancer cells.
“We have now advanced this research to the point where we have optimised the antibodies from our original drug prototype, which is a critical final step towards preparing it for a clinical trial in humans,” she said.
“We could not have reached this stage without the generous support of the community, including the wonderful donors from the Sunshine Coast.”
– QIMR Berghofer was established by an Act of Parliament in 1945 to investigate the fevers and infectious diseases affecting Queenslanders. It has grown to become one of Australia’s leading medical research institutes working across four key research program areas of Cancer, Infection and Inflammation, Population Health, and Brain and Mental Health. Learn how to donate.
