Project Description:

Immunotherapies are a type of treatment that has had success against other cancer types; however, they are yet to be used to successfully treat ovarian cancer. Can the body’s immune cells be rallied into action to defend the body against ovarian cancer cells? This is the question that Professor Gabrielli and his team at The University of Queensland are investigating. With funding from the Ovarian Cancer Research Foundation, the team will test their treatment approach that increases the ability of a patient’s own immune system to recognize and attack tumour cells. Professor Gabrielli’s treatment includes a combination of Checkpoint kinase 1 inhibitor (CHK1) and hydroxyurea, two drugs already used in the clinic for other purposes. Their preliminary research indicates that this treatment has only minor side effects on normal tissue compared to chemotherapy. Currently approximately 80% of ovarian cancer patients suffer a relapse after initially responding to chemotherapy. Eventually chemotherapy stops working all together and most patients are then left without other options. This has been the case for approximately 30 years, which makes projects that explore new therapies and treatment approaches urgently required.