In a development that gives a big sigh of relief to the breast cancer fraternity, funding of a couple of clinical trials which could save lives with the help of new therapies, has been done, all thanks to Australia’s reigning Scott Morrison government. Tragically, young women who have already been diagnosed with breast cancer have a higher possibility of its recurrence that can even lead to death.
By deep-diving into the problem, and with an intent to take it head-on, the researchers at the University of Melbourne are done with the genome sequencing of the breast cancer samples of women under 45 years of age and have thereby identified a new drug that could lead to improving their prognosis. The Australian government has plans to direct a whopping $4.9 million to researchers so that they can evaluate these new therapies which have come up by way of a clinical trial.
Apart from this, the University of New South Wales’ researchers have something more to focus on. Treatment-resistant triple-negative breast cancer urgently requires new therapies to improve the survival rates. There is a discovery which is made that suggests an androgen receptor prevents and also treats the chemotherapy-resistant state of triple negative breast cancer. There are some extremely encouraging results that have come up which show that when tagged with chemotherapy, the survival rates have improved quite a fair bit. An estimated $670,000 of government funds will be used by the researchers to test this new therapy by way of a clinical trial. Both Rare Cancers, Rare Diseases, and Unmet Need- RCRDUN, as well as Medical Research Future Funds- MRFF are the ones through which the funding has been routed.
Interestingly, there are limited effective treatments for many such rare cancers and other major diseases, and the burden on health is pretty significant. The projects that have been announced are a meager part of the grant program by RCRDUN. On the other hand, MRFF which is a $20 billion long-term investment is assisting the best and brightest researchers from Australia.
