New research centre puts a line through cancer
Image: Kevin Rudd joined Premier Kristina Keneally to officially open the $127 million Lowy Cancer Research Centre at the University of New South Wales.
Kevin Rudd was in Randwick on Friday 28 May to officially open the new Lowy Cancer Research Centre at the University of New South Wales (UNSW).
The Prime Minister, joined by NSW Premier Kristina Keneally, was given a tour of the facility before unveiling a plaque for the $127 million centre, which will house 400 scientists from UNSW’s Faculty of Medicine and Children’s Cancer Institute Australia (CCIA).
“To each and every one of you here today, on behalf of the government I would thank you,” said Mr Rudd. “I would thank our young students and researchers for their ambition, their drive, their determination to make careers out of beating and defeating this disease.”
“To each of the leaders in clinical medicine … I thank them for the excellence of their work.”
The centre has been named after Westfield owner Frank Lowy and his family, who donated over $10 million to the project in what is one of the largest philanthropic donation in NSW to date. In addition, the NSW Government chipped in with $18 million and the Federal Government supplied $13 million.
Mr Lowy attended the opening and attracted special mention from both the Prime Minister and Premier. However he deflected any praise when he addressed the audience. “All we did was sign a cheque,” said Mr Lowy. “The people that work, and do the job, they are the heroes.”
Many of Australia’s top adult and child cancer specialists will work at the centre, including world-renowned cancer researcher Philip Hogg, and executive director of CCIA, Michelle Haber.
“Our aim is to cure 100 percent of childhood cancers and turn adult cancer into a manageable disease like diabetes, so cancer sufferers can lead long and productive lives,” said Professor Hogg.
“While adult and childhood cancer are very different diseases, getting both groups of researchers together will lead to new ways of thinking and significant breakthroughs.”
The centre will identify new ways to fight cancer, such as drugs that starve tumours by cutting off their blood supply. Its aim is to turn discoveries in the lab into practical treatments that will have an impact through what vice-chancellor of UNSW, Frederick Hilmer, described as a “B2B” or “bench to bedside” approach.
The Premier added her praise for the centre’s staff: “Sometimes the most unassuming people are doing the most remarkable work, in what are often the most unassuming buildings,” said Ms Keneally.
“You often think that the thousands of people that pass by here each day, they have no appreciation of the extraordinary and often miraculous work that’s going on inside these buildings.”
One in three Australians is killed by cancer and 600 Australian children are diagnosed with the disease each year. Before 1960 childhood cancer was almost always fatal, but now survival rates are about 70 per cent due to improvements in treatment.
by Aaron Cook
