Advancing precision therapeutics for low-grade serous ovarian cancer
Overview
Professor Anna DeFazio’s team is working to improve treatment options for people with low-grade serous ovarian cancer by identifying new molecular drivers of the disease and developing more targeted therapies.
Lead researcher: Professor Anna DeFazio
Grant received: $654,000 over 3 years
OCRF research pillar: Treatment
Research institutions: University of Sydney, Westmead Institute for Medical Research, Westmead Hospital
Latest update
The goal is to better understand the disease so we can match patients to the treatments that are most likely to work for them.”
Professor Anna DeFazio, April 2026
Project details
Professor DeFazio’s team is working to improve treatment options for people with low-grade serous ovarian cancer (LGSOC), a rare form of ovarian cancer that tends to affect younger women, is often diagnosed at an advanced stage and tends not to respond well to chemotherapy. Despite its name, LGSOC is a serious and challenging disease with limited effective treatment options.
While some newer therapies for LGSOC have emerged, including targeted drugs for patients with specific genetic mutations in the MAPK pathway (such as KRAS and BRAF), these treatments are only potentially effective for around half of LGSOC cases. For the remaining patients without these mutations, there are currently no targeted treatment options, and outcomes are often poorer. This is an unmet clinical need.
To address this gap, Professor DeFazio’s team recently conducted one of the largest genomic studies of LGSOC to date. By analysing tumour DNA, gene activity, and other molecular changes in cases without common mutations (KRAS, BRAF, or NRAS), the team identified new potential drivers of cancer growth.
These findings included changes in proteins that act to regulate cell growth with the potential to drive tumour growth and treatment resistance. These candidates may represent promising new therapeutic targets. Together, these discoveries provide important new insights into the biology of LGSOC in patients who currently have few treatment options.
Aims:
- Identify and validate new genetic drivers of low-grade serous ovarian cancer.
- Explore new therapeutic strategies targeting these drivers.
Approach:
In this project, the team will build on the previous findings through three key steps:
- First, they will assess how common newly identified genetic changes are across additional tumour samples.
- Next, they will then use advanced laboratory models to investigate how these changes influence tumour behaviour and response to treatment.
- Finally, the researchers will screen a range of targeted therapies, both alone and in combination, to identify strategies that could be most effective for these tumours.
They’ll also explore the use of PROTACs, an innovative new class of drugs designed to break down harmful proteins in cancer cells.
Ambition and outcomes:
This project aims to uncover new drivers of low-grade serous ovarian cancer and identify treatment strategies that can be translated into future clinical trials.
By improving understanding of this rare cancer and identifying new therapeutic opportunities, the research has the potential to lead to more personalised and effective treatment approaches for patients.
Current status:
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