Randwick Precinct Cancer Roundtable - Personalised Medicine [June 12th 2018]

Topic:  Personalised Medicine

Facilitator: A/Prof Ziegler

Invited presenter: Prof Michelle Haber

Interactive discussion facilitated by A/Prof David Ziegler

Paediatric Oncologist, Sydney Children’s Hospital and Group Leader, Children’s Cancer Institute

A/Prof Ziegler was a Fulbright Scholar at Harvard Medical School from 2005-2007. His clinical research focuses on early phase clinical trials and his laboratory program works on novel therapies for childhood brain tumours. He leads the national childhood cancer personalised medicine trial.

Invited speaker – Prof Michelle Haber AM

Executive Director, Children’s Cancer Institute and Head of the Institute’s Experimental Therapeutics Program

Prof Haber’s team works on developing more effective treatments for individual childhood cancers by identifying molecular targets that drive the growth and development of cancer in children, developing new drugs to inhibit the action of these targets, and combining existing and new drug treatments into novel therapeutic approaches that can be rapidly translated into national and international clinical trials. She has received numerous awards for her research, and is currently leading the Zero Childhood Cancer national child cancer personalised medicine program, enabling all high-risk childhood cancer patients in Australia to have their therapy tailored to the specific genetic and biological characteristics of their individual tumour. 

Topics for discussion

1. Most children with cancer are cured, but what are the current areas of need?
2. How do we develop novel therapeutic approaches for refractory childhood cancers, and move them rapidly to clinical trials?
   • Using old drugs in new ways
   • Using new drugs in novel ways
3. ​​​​​​​​​​​​​​What is the role of precision medicine for children with cancer?

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