An international team of researchers has found a drug previously approved to treat breast cancer could also be used to shrink medulloblastoma, a common form of childhood brain tumour.

The discovery, made by The University of Queensland’s Institute for Molecular Bioscience and the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle, has led to a clinical trial using the drug palbociclib to treat children with medulloblastoma, the most common malignant brain tumour found in children.

UQ’s Professor Brandon Wainwright said brain tumours were the most common cause of cancer death in infants, children and adolescents – and even survivors can end up with significant long-term side effects from existing treatments.

“Clearly, we need new therapies that increase survival of young patients and reduce the side effects they suffer, such as delays in brain development, growth problems and increased risk of other cancers,” Professor Wainwright said.

Fellow UQ researcher Dr Laura Genovesi examined the genetic code of medulloblastoma to predict whether these tumours may respond to already-approved drugs.

“This analysis led us to believe that palbociclib, an oral drug approved in 2015 for the treatment of breast cancer, would be effective against medulloblastoma,” Dr Genovesi said.

“We expected that palbociclib would arrest the growth of medulloblastoma, but we were stunned to find that it went a step further and actually shrank the tumours to a size where survival is possible.”

“The finding is remarkable since the tumours were very advanced and were treated for only a short period of time and we did not use any other therapy such as chemotherapy in combination.

“Some tumours recurred once treatment with palbociclib stopped, probably due to resistant cells within the tumour.

“It means that palbociclib, or drugs like it, could be used against medulloblastoma in combination with other drugs to treat resistant cells.

“If the clinical trial is successful, it would represent a major step forward to taking this research from the genome to the clinic.”

The study is published in the journal Clinical Cancer Research.

They partnered with Professor James Olson from the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center and the research was supported by American and Australian organisations, including The Kids Cancer Project, The Brainchild Foundation, and the Cure Brain Cancer Foundation.

The University of Queensland has been awarded almost $7.5 million to accelerate improvements in the prevention, diagnosis, treatment and management of dementia.

UQ received the largest allocation of any university in the 2017 round of National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) grants to boost dementia research.

Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Research) Professor Robyn Ward said UQ would undertake seven dementia initiatives in an effort to improve outcomes for patients, their families and communities.

“Dementia is Australia’s second leading cause of death and we are scaling up our efforts in line with this global health priority,” Professor Ward said.

“The number of deaths caused by dementia is growing, and with our ageing population there are significant implications across society.

“Projects funded at UQ address a broad cross-section of the many challenges arising from this life-changing group of diseases.

“Importantly, our three major grants will result in the implementation of research into clinical practice and care.”

A $1.87 million project led by Dr Theresa Scott from UQ’s Faculty of Medicine will address the urgent need for interventions to manage driving cessation, to support patients, their families and GPs.

Dr Melinda Martin-Khan from the Centre for Health Services Research (CHSR), Faculty of Medicine will use a $1.86 million grant to develop an electronic nursing assessment system, and Quality of Care Benchmarking Consortium, to improve detection of dementia when patients are admitted to hospitals.

A $1.06 million project led by Associate Professor Sally Bennett from the School of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences, Faculty of Health and Behavioural Sciences, will investigate the implementation of a program delivered by occupational therapists to provide individually tailored training and support for people with dementia and their carers living at home in the community.

Four dementia research leadership Fellowships were awarded to UQ.

Innovative neurocognitive methods to achieve earlier diagnosis and develop tailored interventions to maintain function will be the focus of the School of Psychology’s Associate Professor Gail Robinson.

Dr Rodrigo Medeiros from Queensland Brain Institute (QBI) will investigate biological pathways in the onset and progression of Alzheimer’s disease, to identify potential biomarkers and therapeutic targets.

At the Faculty of Medicine’s Centre for Clinical Research, Dr Nadeeka Dissanayaka will develop an integrated network to maximise treatment outcomes for depression and anxiety in people with dementia.

Associate Professor Tracy Comans from CHSR will develop ways to measure the cost-effectiveness of treatments and dementia care packages, to ensure resources are directed into programs most likely to be of benefit.

Humpback whales learn songs in segments – like the verses of a human song – and can remix them, a new study involving University of Queensland research has found.

The study featured data from Associate Professor Michael Noad of the UQ School of Veterinary Science’sCetacean Ecology and Acoustics Laboratory (CEAL).

Research indicated that whale songs appeared to be learnt a similar way to how humans acquire language skills, or a bird learns its warble.

“All the males in a population sing the same complex song, but the pattern of song changes with time, sometimes quite rapidly, across the population,” Dr Noad said.

“Learning new songs is a form of what’s known as ‘social learning’, which is where individual animals learn behaviours from each other rather than having them passed on from one generation to another genetically.

“Although we know that whales change their songs over time, we don’t know about how they learn the new songs.

“The rate of change though shows that they are constantly learning and updating their songs rapidly.”

The study was led by UQ graduate Dr Ellen Garland, now a postdoctoral fellow at the University of St Andrews, Scotland, and focused on whale songs that were in the process of changing from one type to another.

The research found whales could combine segments of songs in predictable ways if the underlying structural pattern was similar.

“We recorded many individual singers from several populations, including the eastern Australian population and other populations in the South Pacific,” Dr Noad said.

“We looked for songs that were caught in the act of changing; songs that had some of the old song as well as some of the new song.

“Ellen found a couple of interesting things. When we found these rare ‘hybrid’ songs, the themes of the songs, either old or new, were intact, showing that the whales probably learn songs theme-by-theme like the verse of a human song.

“The other interesting thing was when they switched mid-song from old to new or new to old, it was during a theme most similar to another theme in either old or new songs.

“These themes may have been used as a way of bridging the old and new songs and therefore help with social learning.

“This provides some evidence for how animals rapidly learn large, complex displays and may have relevance for understanding how human language, the most outstanding example of social learning, evolved.”

Dr Noad said changes in humpback whale songs were one of the most striking examples of the transmission of a cultural trait and social learning in any non-human animal.

The study, Cultural transmission in humpback whales: insights from song hybridization events during revolutionary song change, is published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) journal (doi/10.1073/pnas.1621072114).

Media: Associate Professor Michael Noad, mnoad@uq.edu.au, +61 7 54 601876; Dr Ellen Garland, ecg5@st-andrews.ac.uk, +44-7478-649964. UQ Communications, communications@uq.edu.au, +61 7 3365 3439.

Gene therapy aimed at treating diabetes and obesity is the subject of an agreement between Australian researchers and a Canadian health and wellness company.

The University of Queensland’s (UQ) main commercialisation company UniQuest has finalised the deal with Vancouver-based PreveCeutical Medical Inc. (PMI).

The four-year research program will be led by Dr Harendra (Harry) Parekh of UQ’s School of Pharmacy, in collaboration with QIMR Berghofer Medical Research Institute’s Professor Grant Ramm and Murdoch University’s Dr Rakesh Veedu.

UniQuest CEO Dr Dean Moss said the agreement was a long-term commitment to tackling two rapidly-growing diseases.

“Diabetes and obesity are among the most pressing challenges facing human health today, costing hundreds of billions of dollars a year in the US alone,” Dr Moss said.

“I’m delighted to announce this cross-disciplinary collaboration, our third agreement with PMI this year.

“Being able to offer translational expertise in multiple disease areas is a ringing endorsement of UQ’s research excellence and a great example of UniQuest’s leadership in research commercialisation.”

In April, UniQuest signed two agreements with PMI – the first to stabilise peptides isolated from scorpion venom for use in immune-boosting applications, and the second to develop a soluble gel to deliver cannabinoids directly to the brain via the nasal cavity.

Dr Parekh said the focus was on reducing levels of a key protein implicated in both diabetes and obesity.

“By employing proprietary chemistries that span both carrier system design and gene engineering, we have the potential to vastly improve the safety and efficiency of gene-related therapeutic approaches,” Dr Parekh said.

“Our extensive earlier studies now pave the way for us to take this work through to preclinical evaluation and validation.”

PMI will have an option to negotiate a licence to UniQuest’s background intellectual property.

Media: Danielle Koopman, UniQuest: d.koopman@uniquest.com.au, 0409 767 199

A new Netflix documentary, Chasing Coral, is about to hit the world’s small screens.

The University of Queensland’s Professor Ove Hoegh-Guldberg was the chief scientific adviser on the documentary, which starkly records and reveals the impact of climate change on the world’s coral reefs.

Emmy award-winning filmmaker Jeff Orlowski’s film follows a team of divers, photographers and scientists on the epic ocean adventure.

Professor Hoegh-Guldberg plays a starring role in the documentary along with UQ marine scientists Dr Pim Bongaerts, Dr Manuel Gonzalez-Rivero, Professor Justin Marshall, and other world-renowned coral reef experts.

Professor Hoegh-Guldberg said the documentary was a powerful way to reveal the impact climate change is having on our reefs.

“This is as much about the emotional side of reef losses as it is about the compelling science behind this planetary emergency,” he said.

For the past three years, Jeff and his team have followed the work of The Ocean Agency, revealing the global bleaching event and its impacts on the world’s coral reefs.

Audiences will witness the painful process as the team invent the first ever time-lapse camera to record coral bleaching as it happens. The effort is anything but straightforward as the scientists doggedly battle technical malfunctions and the force of nature below the waves.

With its breathtaking photography, nail-biting suspense, and startling emotion, Chasing Coral is a dramatic production.

The film is the result of more than 650 hours spent underwater; footage from volunteers in 30 countries, as well as support from more than 500 people from across the world.

Chasing Coral premiers on Netflix today, and was produced in association with Argent Pictures, The Kendeda Fund and in partnership with The Ocean Agency and View Into the Blue.