The Leukaemia Foundation is marking a $20 million research milestone by drawing focus to the ongoing need for research to improve survival of blood cancer, which is second only to lung cancer in the number of Australian lives it claims each year.

The Leukaemia Foundation is marking a $20 million research milestone by drawing focus to the ongoing need for research to improve survival of blood cancer, which is second only to lung cancer in the number of Australian lives it claims each year.

In 2011, around 11,500 Australians are expected to develop leukaemias, lymphomas or myeloma. And while as many as 40,000 people live with one of these forms of blood cancer today, statistically just over half are expected to survive.

"Blood cancer might be the fifth most common cancer in Australian men and women, but only lung cancer claims more lives. Around 4,000 people are expected to lose their life to blood cancer this year so clearly, the ongoing need for research is great," said Ms Stephanie Hechenberger, General Manager Tasmania of the Leukaemia Foundation of Australia.

"The Leukaemia Foundation is proud to have reached a milestone of $20.3 million research commitment since 2005. This commitment includes $4.3 million for 59 projects this year, including our first ever funding for a clinical trial," Ms Hechenberger said.

Medical research is a long process,' says Ms Hechenberger."Research takes time and commitment, and significant resources are needed to make it happen."

Senior Research Fellow, Dr Joanne Dickinson and her team from the Menzies Research Institute Tasmania are the successful grant recipients from Tasmania this year. Dr Jo Dickinson was awarded $91,000 over a one-year period, for her research into blood cancer. Dr Dickinson's work focuses on the genetic basis of blood cancers. This important work was recently published in the prestigious international journal Blood.

Dr Dickinson says that many blood cancers have a genetic basis to them that can be inherited from one generation to the next.

"This can cause these cancers to be more common in some families than others," Dr Dickinson said.

"We are trying to identify some of these inherited risk genes using large families from Tasmania," Dr Dickinson said.

"We have identified certain families where there is an increase in incidence of blood cancers. We propose this is due to a genetic predisposition that can subsequently give rise to malignancies in any blood cell type," Dr Dickinson said.

This new funding will enable us to make significant progress with this work, taking advantage of newly available gene technologies. These technologies can give us detailed information about gene function in these families. We are very grateful for the support of the Leukaemia Foundation," Dr Dickinson said.

"We're proud of the results researchers like Dr Dickinson and her team are making and we thank all of our supporters, including the independent panel of leading Australian haematologists and medical researchers who ensure that we fund the most important research," Ms Hechenberger said.

Information Released by:

Fiona Horwood

Communications Manager

Menzies Research Institute Tasmania

Phone: 6226 7751 Mobile: 0409 357 384

Email: Fiona.Horwood@menzies.utas.edu.au

Jeanette Lyons-McKinnon                        

Marketing and Communications Manager            

Leukaemia Foundation                                     

Mobile: 0434 609 051                                                     

Email: jlyons@leukaemia.org.au

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