Develop new approaches to cancer diagnosis and treatment

细胞凋亡是我们计划研究的主要焦点，因为它的损伤既是恶性肿瘤的关键步骤，也是有效治疗的障碍。可以说，我们部门的实验室负责人和我们在WEHI结构生物学部门的合作者构成了世界上最强大的团队。自1988年该领域的复兴以来，我们积累了丰富的经验，他们创造了许多独特的材料，使我们能够回答基本问题并将其转化为新的治疗方法。我们团队的第二个重点，干细胞与癌症的联系，也非常重要，因为肿瘤中罕见的干细胞可能决定治疗结果。该奖学金旨在解决具有巨大医学潜力的基本问题。它建立在一个具有不同互补专业知识、有效互动记录、高势头和开创性发现历史的团队进行的富有成效的持续研究的基础上。我计划保持并进一步发展我们的部门（WEHI的癌症分子遗传学部门），使其成为世界上最强大的癌症研究和癌症治疗开发团队之一。我们的部门包含几个实验室，在他们的方法和研究兴趣上高度互动和互补。我计划加强我们部门已经非常高产的实验室，并开发一些新的实验室（见下面的“拟议团队”）。我计划增加我们部门的工作，包括对其他实体肿瘤（如结肠癌、肺癌、前列腺癌）的研究。该奖学金旨在极大地促进澳大利亚的癌症研究和临床实践。这将提高澳大利亚作为一个在医学研究和临床实践方面公认卓越的国家的声誉。我也有信心，我们的部门将继续培养优秀的博士毕业生和博士后，他们将在适当的时候成为独立的研究人员，并发展成为澳大利亚和或海外医学研究的未来领导者。

Apoptosis is the dominant focus of our planned studies, because its impairment is both a critical step towards malignancy and a barrier to effective treatment. Arguably, the laboratory heads within our division and our collaborators from the Structure Biology Division at WEHI constitute the world’s strongest group with this focus. Our accumulated experience in this field from its renaissance in 1988 and the many unique materials they have created superbly position us to answer the fundamental questions and translate them into new therapeutic approaches. Our team’s second focus, the links of stem cells to cancer, is also of great importance, because the rare stem cells in the tumour may dictate therapeutic outcome. This Fellowship aims to addresses fundamental issues with enormous potential for medicine. It builds on productive ongoing research by a team with diverse complementary expertise, a record of effective interaction, high momentum and a history of path-breaking discoveries. I plan to maintain and further develop our Division (the Molecular Genetics of Cancer Division at WEHI) as one of the strongest teams for cancer research and development of cancer therapies in the world. Our division contains several laboratories that are highly interactive and complimentary in their approaches and research interests. I plan to strengthen the already highly productive laboratories in our division and to develop some new ones (see below under ‘proposed team’). I plan to increase work of our division to also include studies on other solid tumours (e.g. colon cancer, lung cancer, prostate cancer). This Fellowships aims to greatly enhance cancer research and hopefully also clinical practice in Australia. This should enhance the reputation of Australia as a country with recognized excellence in medical research and clinical practice. I am also confident that our division will continue to educate outstanding PhD graduates and postdoctoral fellows who will in due course become independent researchers and develop into future leaders in medical research in Australia and-or overseas.