New cancer research centre opens

In Melbourne a new cancer research centre has opened and for the first time in Australia directly links the laboratory with patient care.

The Ian Potter Foundation Centre of Cancer Genomics and Predictive Medicine is operating out of the Peter McCallum Cancer Institute.Treatments are individualised through gene analysis to match patients with the best available anti-cancer drugs.Peter McCallum’s director of research, Professor David Bowtell, says the linking of the laboratory with the treatment regime is a radical new approach in the care of cancer patients.”It really brings together all the pieces of the puzzle,” he said. “There’s a clinical front end to the process, there’s a molecular genetics middle part and then there’s a biothematics analysis at the other end and it brings all those players together in a multi-disciplinary team under one roof.”(Source: ABC Online)