QIMR Berghofer welcomes $14m melanoma project

QIMR Berghofer Medical Research Institute will be part of a $14 million research project to study the risk and progression of melanoma and how it responds to treatment at the molecular level.

The research, funded by the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC), will begin next year.

Professor Nick Hayward from QIMR Berghofer’s Oncogenomics Laboratory and the Melanoma Institute of Australia (MIA) will be among researchers working on the study.
“Finding gene faults responsible for melanoma could lead to targeted screening and better understanding of how these cancers develop,” Professor Hayward said.

Professor Hayward’s team recently published research which identified two new gene faults which dramatically increase melanoma risk.

Investigators will be based at Macquarie University, the University of Sydney, the Centenary Institute, and the Westmead Millennium Institute, along with QIMR Berghofer.

All investigators are part of MIA, the world’s largest cancer centre dedicated to research and treatment of melanoma.

Lead researcher Professor Rick Kefford from Macquarie University said the project had real prospects of accelerating prevention and early detection of melanoma.

“In this era of rapid change the program could make realistic progress towards a cure of metastatic disease,” Professor Kefford said.

Melanoma is the fourth most common cancer in men and women and is among the most common causes of cancer death in younger adults.