Increased funding in project grants

Building awareness around Pancreatic Cancer is starting to pay off.

Last week, the National Health and Medical Research Council announced $4.2 million funding for Pancreatic Cancer project grants. The new funds will go towards studies to better understand the disease and develop new treatments. It represents the largest amount of funding ever awarded to Pancreatic Cancer research through NHMRC project grants in Australia.

Six projects from five different research institutes across Australia received the funding, and of those four are being led by researchers who had previously been recipients of Avner Foundation grants.

Some of the groundbreaking findings from that earlier research has built the foundations for the new grants being awarded.

Associate Professor Paul Timpson from the Garvan Institute, and Dr Zaklina Kovacevic of the University of Sydney were both awarded Avner Foundation grants, which helped them kickstart important research that attracted the latest funding.

Dr Marina Pajic from the Garvan Institute, and Professor Sean Grimmond from the University of Melbourne were also previous Avner Foundation grant recipients whom have been awarded new NHMRC funding.

The new studies will focus on personalised medicine, fine-tuning treatments, understanding the Pancreatic Cancer ‘ecosystem’, gene therapy and developing novel treatments.

The Avner Pancreatic Cancer Foundation would like to thank all of its volunteers, donors, fundraisers and campaigners for their continuous work in making noise around Pancreatic Cancer. Your support is appreciated more than ever as we gain momentum towards making survival possible.

Award recipients:

Associate Professor Paul Timpson, Chief Investigator – The Garvan Institute of Medical Research
Dr Zaklina Kovacevic, Chief Investigator – University of Sydney
Dr Marina Pajic, Chief Investigator – The Garvan Institute of Medical Research
Professor Sean Grimmond, Chief Investigator – University of Melbourne
Associate Professor Joan Heath, Chief Investigator – The Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research
Professor Ruth Ganss, Chief Investigator – University of Western Australia

For more information, contact the individual research institutes or visit https://nhmrc.gov.au/funding/find-funding/project-grants.