WHERE DOES THE MONEY GO?
THE ZERO CHILDHOOD CANCER PROGRAM
2021 - extant
INSTITUTION:
An initiative of Children’s Cancer Institute and Kids Cancer Centre at Sydney Children’s Hospital
CHIEF RESEARCHER:
Prof. Glenn Marshall AM
The Zero Childhood Cancer program aims to one day be able to provide a personalised treatment plan for every child.
Because the genetic material of cancers can be astonishingly complex, each child’s cancer is unique. Standard therapies like chemotherapy are not always as effective as targeted, precision treatments, and they come with life-long side effects. For some children, ZERO’s comprehensive gene sequencing platform and careful analysis can identify abnormalities in their cancer, and a treatment can be found to target those cancer cells. However, we can’t yet find a treatment for every child’s cancer, because we don’t always know why it’s growing. This program enables researchers to identify more genetic abnormalities in children’s cancers, using artificial intelligence and deep learning, to better understand what makes that child’s cancer grow. Once they know what is driving the cancer, they will try to find and create new treatments to target it.