The Kids’ Cancer Project: An Update

Since October of 2021 The Hammond Family Foundation has partnered with the Kid's Cancer Project in which the charity has received upwards of $50,000 annually. Currently the total is sitting over $100,000.

Support from the Family Foundation has gone into funding research for the following:

Identification of megakaryocyte and platelet bone marrow niches

Recipient: Dr Gavin Tjin

Institute: St Vincent’s Institute of Medical Research, Melbourne

A bone marrow transplant reduces platelet production in many patients, significantly reducing their quality of life and survival post-transplant. This project has shown that ‘helper’ cells in the bone marrow that help to control blood cell production are altered after a bone marrow transplant and are the likely cause of reduced platelets. This project will identify the platelet production specific ‘helper’ cell types that are changed post-transplant enabling the identification of better ways to improve platelet recovery in patients.

Utilising cord blood-derived Natural Killers cells to prevent post-transplant relapse in Childhood Leukaemia

Recipient: Dr Camille Guillerey

Institute; University of Queensland

Therapeutic options for children who have relapsed from leukaemia are currently limited. This project proposes to utilise the therapeutic potential of Natural Killer (NK) cells, a type of immune cell able to kill leukaemia cancer cells. We plan to develop a new method to expand NK cells from cord blood and test their ability to protect against paediatric leukaemia, using-state-of-the-art preclinical models. Our research will provide critical data for the design of NK cell-based immunotherapies. This project will generate pivotal pre-clinical data to develop new immunotherapies for cancer patients. Although this project is focused on childhood leukaemia, immunotherapeutic approaches developed in this proposal could also be applied to other cancers.