The TCRN took a road trip to the University of Technology, Sydney (UTS) on Friday, 4 July, for an afternoon of UTS-style translational cancer research and networking. Everyone in attendance was treated to a showcase of the excellent cancer research being conducted at UTS, as well as a supersized TCRN 3rd birthday mudcake.
TCRN member groups are scattered across diverse UTS faculties including Pharmacy, Engineering and Information Technology (FEIT), Business and Health. The TCRN-UTS Roadshow therefore provided a rare opportunity for these members to interact and hear about each other’s research. UTS members also heard about the work being done by the TCRN to advance biobanking, primary cancer care, genomics and data linkage. The day provided participants with an opportunity to identify several areas of common ground and complementarity for future collaborations in translational cancer research.
Some of the innovations in cancer research that were showcased at the TCRN-UTS Roadshow include:
• understanding the mechanism of multidrug resistance cancer by A/Prof Mary Bebawy and team at UTS Pharmacy
• improvements in palliative care brought about by clinical trials research conducted by Dr Tim Luckett and others at UTS Health
• identification of miRNA biomarkers for head and neck cancers by FIET’s Dr Nham Tran and team.
• better economics and cost-effectiveness related to cancer treatments by Professor Marion Haas and her team from the Centre for Health Economics Research and Evaluation (CHERE)
• potential new targets for prostate and breast cancer therapy by the research teams of FIET’s Dr Rose Martiniello-Wilks and Dr Eileen McGowan.
The TCRN would like to thank all the UTS researchers and PhD students that presented on the day, and made the event informative and entertaining. Thanks also to members of the UTS Research Innovations Office and UTS Graduate School for their attendance.
