Donations to the research work of Professor Fiona Simpson are empowering studies across multiple forms of cancer and helping pioneer new approaches to treatment.
Fiona and her team at the University of Queensland (UQ) Frazer Institute’s Simpson Lab stretch every dollar, as they investigate solutions and new treatments across several types of breast cancer as well as head and neck cancer.
Fiona and her team credit Foundation funding with helping to keep their lab open, a contribution that has allowed combination therapy research in HER2 breast cancer to advance through clinical trial.
The combination therapy research uses a common travel sickness medication to move the target of existing chemotherapy drugs from inside the cancer cell to the cell’s surface where the drugs can work more effectively. The success of a small patient trial at the PA and St Vincents can now allow a larger trial to take place.
“In HER2 breast cancer, as well as completing the HER2Pro safety trial, we have been working with a scientist from the company that makes the new Enhertu (traztuzumab-DxD) to see why it works so well and what the "bystander" effect is that causes surrounding cancer cells which are not HER2 positive to also die,” Fiona said.
With the combination therapy ready to advance to its next stage, Fiona and her team have also been exploring estrogen and progesterone receptor (ER/PR) breast cancer. These hormone receptor positive breast cancers amount to approximately 80 per cent of diagnosed breast cancers.
“In ER/PR breast cancer we have found a protein family linked to patient outcomes and whether metastasis occurs or not. Biomarkers can help us to predict outcomes, but we are working out why the protein family is linked to metastasis so that we can then prevent it,” Fiona says.
“In Triple Negative Breast Cancer, we are collaborating with multiple teams across UQ to develop new treatments with the newest technologies.”
The Simpson Lab is also a leading light in research into a rare form of head and neck cancer known as Adenoid Cystic Carcinoma (AdCC), which Fiona explained is also found in the breast.
“In Breast AdCC we are working with a beautiful patient who has lived experience of this cancer and tying this in with our work on AdCC in the head and neck region.
“Our adenoid cystic project is growing because everybody that's got it in Australia is in touch with us because we're one of the few groups working on this globally."
The bench to bedside patient outcomes focused approach of the PA hospital campus also has the Simpson Lab contributing research that aims to benefit transplant patients.
“We're exploring ways to treat or prevent all the squamous cell carcinomas (SCC) that the kidney, heart, and lung transplant patients get. Once they're immunosuppressed as a result of their treatments, they can get SCC skin cancer.”
Fiona said though it’s the researchers and clinicians pushing treatments forward, that can’t occur without those who choose to give, adding that every donation to research is valuable.
“We’re so thankful to all the donors, because without them we aren’t in the lab, we aren’t meeting with patients, oncologists and surgeons and we aren’t learning and discovering.”
