2022 Cancer Council WA Student Vacation Research Scholarships

Acute lymphoblastic leukaemia (ALL) is a type of cancer where the bone marrow produces too many immature lymphocytes; it is the most common type of cancer in children. Children with Down Syndrome (DS) have a greater likelihood of developing ALL, tending to have a more severe disease.
In addition to trisomy 21 (i.e., three copies of chromosome 21), DS-ALL cells commonly carry changes that are linked to a poor outcome. Such changes include mutations in CEBPD and KRAS that enhance cell replication. Alone, these changes lead to cancer development, but it is not well understood if they have a similar effect in combination with trisomy 21.
Therefore, the project will study their cooperation with trisomy 21. This will be conducted by comparing mouse cells, with and without trisomy 21, on their ability to form visible group of cells (colonies).
The results will allow us to develop a better understanding on this relationship. Thereby, establishing a better predictive model of disease.

Bone and soft tissue sarcomas are a rare (1% of all cancers) and large group (over 100 sub-types) of tumours that are disproportionally more common in children, adolescents, and young adults. Their 5-year survival rate of ~70% hasn't improved significantly over the past decades compared to the improvements observed for the more common types of cancers. This is in part due to their rarity making it very difficult to conduct large clinical trials of novel and targeted drug treatments for each sarcoma subtype.
We have developed a genetic screening program for sarcoma patients with advanced malignant disease that has identified genes that would indicate specific treatment options for some patients if their cancer was of a more common type. By using the recent advances in gene editing technologies, we aim to develop a rapid lab-based screening method of the effectiveness of these novel, targeted therapies identified in the genetic screening program to provide evidence of potential drug efficacy for these sarcoma patients.

Retroperitoneal sarcomas are a rare type of cancer which are often picked up late. The mainstay of curative treatment is surgery, but recurrence rates after surgery are high, with 50% of patients developing a recurrence within 5 years. These recurrences may be due to microscopic areas of cancer that are not removed because they are too small to detect. A novel method for treating these microscopic areas of cancer with minimal impact on surrounding organs and structures is argon plasma coagulation (APC). APC has previously been used for treating other cancers, namely oesophageal cancer, but is yet to be used for retroperitoneal sarcomas. The efficacy of APC for preventing recurrence of retroperitoneal sarcomas will be examined by comparing recurrence rates amongst patients treated with surgery plus APC versus those treated with surgery alone. This will help inform best practice for curative treatment of patients with retroperitoneal sarcomas.

Liver progenitor cells (LPCs) regenerate the liver during chronic damage but are highly prone to mutations. Liver cancer is rare but, the age-standardised incidence rate increased 378% whilst the mortality rate increased threefold from 1982 to 2015.
This project will quantify how likely LPCs are to become cancerous as they go through certain stages of cell culture. The intent is to understand whether LPCs become more likely to form tumours over time or abruptly become cancerous after a specific stage.
My role is to passage adult mouse LPCs (a colony-forming technique that assesses tumorigenicity). It is performed by suspending the cells in agar and counting the proportion that develop into large colonies (likely tumours).
Linking LPCs to cancer formation could contribute to developing new ways of detecting cancer in early stages without the need for biopsies which can, in some instances, be risky and often inaccurate.

Cancer cells divide rapidly and therefore require a lot of iron (as it is required to make the building blocks of DNA). Cancer cells thus have a more efficient way of taking up iron than non-cancerous cells. One of the ways cells take up iron is through a receptor known as the transferrin receptor. Thus the activity of this receptor is greater in cancerous cells as shown in many cancer cell types, however it hasn't been shown in liver cancer cells.
This project aims to confirm that this increased transferrin receptor activity, i.e. more efficient iron uptake mechanism, applies to liver cancer cells. To do this, fluorescent transferrin will be added to both cancerous and non-cancerous cells. It will bind to its receptor and the level of fluorescence will thus indicate the level of iron uptake by the cell. It is expected this will confirm that increased iron uptake through the transferrin receptor occurs in liver cancer cells, opening up opportunities for anticancer drugs to be developed to target this receptor.

With obesity linked to 13 cancers and diet related to 30% of all cancers, having a healthy diet and body weight is one of the most cost-effective approaches to cancer prevention. This research project will help build the evidence base underpinning Cancer Council WA's policy campaign to ban unhealthy advertising on government-owned assets. It builds on and expands a Cancer Council WA funded project quantifying the amount of outdoor food advertising present near Perth schools in 2020/21 by using a validated tool to score the observed 1700 advertisements according to their appeal to teenagers. The findings will be written up as a scientific manuscript to be submitted to a high impact, peer-reviewed journal and can be used by the Cancer Council WA's Obesity Prevention Team in their advocacy work. Reducing children's exposure to unhealthy food advertisements can help improve dietary intake and reduce obesity, which in turn can help reduce the incidence and prevalence of diet- and obesity-related cancers.