Research into immunotherapy, pain treatments and preventing ovarian cancer has earned three PhD students from across the VCCC Alliance a Picchi Award for Excellence in Cancer Research.
The winners, who receive $10,000 each, will receive their awards and present their research at an official ceremony at the Victorian Comprehensive Cancer Centre on 25 September 2023.
The awards, funded by The Picchi Brothers Foundation, aim to inspire and encourage the next generation of cancer research leaders by providing recipients with the opportunity to travel internationally for conferences or collaborative works to support their development towards research independence.
Supervisors, mentors, colleagues, collaborators, friends and family are encouraged to attend the awards event and be inspired by the next generation of cancer research leaders.
Dr Aaron Wong
St Vincent’s Hospital, The Royal Melbourne Hospital, and Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre
Thesis: Accelerating Pharmacogenomic Guided Opiod Prescribing into Clinical Practice in Cancer Patients, Department of Medicine, The University of Melbourne
Dr Aaron Wong is a trained palliative care physician and medical oncologist. He is Palliative Care Clinical Trials Lead at the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre and The Royal Melbourne Hospital, and is completing his PhD on the role of pharmacogenomics on opioid use for the treatment of pain due to advanced cancer.
Amanda Chen
Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre
Thesis: CRISPR/Cas9 Engineering of Next Generation Armoured CAR T Cells, The Sir Peter MacCallum Department of Oncology, The University of Melbourne
Amanda Chen is a fourth year PhD student in the Beavis and Darcy laboratories at the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre. In her PhD, she has developed a novel CRISPR/Cas9 gene editing approach to enhance CAR T cell therapy, a form of immunotherapy that involves the adoptive transfer of engineered T cells into cancer patients. Specifically, this CRISPR/Cas9 editing strategy enables the “armouring” of CAR T cells to express potent immunomodulatory factors to tumours, demonstrating enhanced therapeutic efficacy in preclinical models, while maintaining a favourable safety profile. Amanda’s work has the potential to improve CAR T cell therapy for the treatment of solid tumours which currently respond poorly to conventional adoptive T cell therapies.
Rachel Delahunty
Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre
Thesis: Reducing the morbidity and mortality of ovarian cancer through prevention, Faculty of Medicine, Dentistry and Health Sciences, The University of Melbourne
Rachel Delahunty is a medical oncologist at The Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre, The Mercy Hospital for Women and Geelong University Hospital. She has a special interest in gynaecological oncology and translational research and recently completed her PhD through the University of Melbourne and Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre.
The Picchi brothers, Vittorio, Antonio and Pietro were Italian migrants who, despite building a thriving business manufacturing mannequins at the height of Melbourne's emerging fashion and retail business, were left without descendants due to the ravages of asthma and cancer. The Picchi Brothers Foundation was founded in 1993 and has since provided more than 1.5 million dollars in grants to support projects and researchers.
The Picchi Awards ceremony will be held 25 September 2023, 5.00–7.00pm.
