“Like every family, my family and Embassy families have lost too many people we love to cancer.” – US Ambassador to Australia, Ms Caroline Kennedy
On Friday 23 February, we were honoured to welcome the US Ambassador to Australia, Ms Caroline Kennedy, her spouse Dr Edwin Schlossberg and the US Consul General, Ms Kathleen Lively, for a tour of the VCCC building. It was a unique opportunity to learn more about some of the life-saving research being undertaken across the VCCC Alliance.
The visit, which included Peter McCallum Cancer Centre, University of Melbourne Centre for Cancer Research and The Brain Cancer Centre at WEHI, highlighted exciting opportunities to build on existing connections and explore new pathways for collaboration and between Australia and the US. Cervical cancer control, brain cancer research and trials, melanoma treatments and new therapeutics were high on the agenda as part of the recently announced US-Australia Cancer Moonshot Initiative.
Retracing some of the steps that now-President Joe Biden took in 2016 when he attended the opening of the VCCC building, the Ambassador was clearly impressed by the ambition, scale and scope of the research taking place. She commented particularly on the connectivity and collaborations that are such a hallmark of the precinct and how this is employed to accelerate progress.
The Ambassador also expressed a keen interest in improving equitable access to care and better outcomes for Indigenous peoples and the forthcoming World Indigenous Cancer Conference being held here in Naarm (Melbourne), 18-20 March.
“It’s tremendously exciting and important that Ambassador Kennedy is actively pursuing expansion in US-Australia cancer collaborations. There are some great synergies, and the potential is enormous,” said Professor Grant McArthur AO, who is a member of the Ambassador’s Australian cancer advisory group. “I believe we can really make an impact if we maximise this opportunity and look forward to continuing to work on this with the Ambassador, her team and our members.”
