Spinal Cord Injury Pain: Understanding Mechanisms To Develop Treatments
Funder
National Health and Medical Research Council
Funding Amount
$597,675.00
Summary
Spinal cord injury has devastating effects on health and quality of life. Many of the major consequences of injury, such as chronic pain and loss of voluntary voiding, are "invisible" – i.e., they are not as visible as limitations of mobility. Our study aims to define the neurobiological changes that cause development of persistent pain after spinal cord injury and use pharmacological tools to attenuate the development of pain.
Targeting Bone Marrow Mediated Angiogenesis And Metastasis In Breast Cancer
Funder
National Health and Medical Research Council
Funding Amount
$463,006.00
Summary
Despite advances in treatment and diagnostics breast cancer (BC) remains one of the leading causes of death in women. Metastases and tumour blood vessel recruitment are linked. Work by Dr Mellick and others has shown that host bone marrow contributes endothelial progenitor cells (EPCs) to tumour vasculature. The chemokines and their receptors, which differentiate EPCs from tumour vessels, will be knocked down in the tumour cells and EPC progenitors with the aim of preventing tumour spread.