The Australian Gynaecological Cancer Foundation’s first ever research fellow, Dr Dane Cheasley, is a proud recipient of the Victorian Cancer Agency Mid-Career Research Fellowship.
In 2017 Dr Dane Cheasley was awarded the AGCF and Way In Network Postdoctoral Research Fellowship Award. His project focused on low-grade serous ovarian cancer (LGSOC), detecting genetic commonalities between patients in order to develop new gene (or targeted) therapies. As part of his fellowship, he was able to amass the largest sample base of low-grade cancerous tissues for genetic research in the world.
Following on from the incredible success of this project, Dr Cheasley was then awarded a $1.1 million Medical Research Future Fund (MRFF) grant to continue to investigate new therapy combinations for women with ovarian cancer. The research has already had an incredible response, with women who have LGSOC writing Dane messages of support for his research.
Now, Dr Cheasley continues his amazing work with the 2020 Victorian Cancer Agency (VCA) Mid-Career Research Fellowship. This innovative project is the first of its kind, and will highlight new treatment opportunities to create immediate clinical drug development opportunities that significantly improve patient outcomes.
One of the best consequences of the VCA Fellowship, Dane says, is that he can hire other bright young researchers to help push the project forward. “I now have someone to bounce ideas with,” he says. “She’s got a huge amount of experience in cancer and doing drug discovery. And she pushes us in different directions. It’s exciting to work as part of a team.”
When reflecting on his career up until this point, Dane says that the AGCF “almost paved my career.”
“Before I received the AGCF Postdoctoral Research Fellowship Award I was working on three main projects. The AGCF grant pushed me down this rare ovarian cancer space and now it means I’ve become an expert or specialist in the field. All subsequent grants are because they followed on from the data generated from the AGCF grant.”
Every two hours an Australian woman is diagnosed with a gynaecological cancer. We’re so grateful for Dr Dane Cheasley for his incredible contribution to research and will continue to share his exciting career updates as he helps save the lives of women.
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