A Brisbane scientist’s innovative work with “sleepy” brain stem cells has earned him a share of the 2025 Metcalf Prizes for Stem Cell Research.
Dr Lachlan Harris, a researcher at QIMR Berghofer, discovered the molecular mechanisms that controlled how healthy brain stem cells fell asleep and how they decided when to wake up.
Dr Harris shares the award with Dr Maria Di Biase, from the University of Melbourne, who created a “brain bank” of schizophrenia, with blobs of brain cells from 100 people growing in the lab and is using these brain organoids to develop new approaches to diagnosis and treatment.
National Stem Cell Foundation of Australia chairman Graeme Blackman said the winners were “conducting fundamental research that will have vitally important implications for mental health, brain cancer and keeping the brain healthy as we age”.
Dr Harris said he would use his findings to address recurrent, and often lethal, brain cancer.
“It turns out that this same process of sleep is adopted by brain cancer stem cells,” he said.
“They’re able to use this dormancy to survive chemotherapy and radiation therapy. After treatment, these cancer sleeper cells can wake up, leading to cancer recurrence.”
“If our ideas are right, it could lead to a whole new way of treating brain cancer.”
