Tackling Australia’s national cancer
Professor Levon Khachigian, University of New South Wales
A self-confessed card-carrying vascular biologist, Professor Levon Khachigian has spent his working life studying how blood vessels – and the cells that run through them – control normal bodily function and disease.
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These interests have led him, through curiosity-driven research, to diverse areas such as atherosclerosis, ocular neovascularisation, rheumatoid arthritis and tumor growth, as these illnesses are linked together mechanistically by vascular biology.
“A tumour can’t grow beyond a few millimetres unless it has an active blood supply,” he says. “For many years now I’ve been interested in the mechanisms controlling the complex process of angiogenesis, and ways we can circumvent tumor growth by blocking neovascularisation in a growing tumour.”
Levon’s fascination has paid off, with many achievements in health that have furthered our understanding of heart attacks and solid tumour growths. Now, he has turned his attention on skin cancer, Australia’s national cancer, with some impressive results.
“The Cancer Institute NSW Translational Program Grant has allowed us to carry one of our home-grown and unique gene-targeting agents from bench to the bedside,” he says. “In animal models our candidate drugs block the growth and even cause regression of three of the most prevalent skin cancer types: basal cell carcinoma, squamous cell carcinoma and malignant melanoma.
Australia is the skin cancer capital of the world. Through the outcomes of our research we can add to the much-needed array of therapeutic tools, which
are sorely lacking at
the present time.
- Professor Levon Khachigian
“Moreover, these agents prevent the metastatic spread of squamous cell carcinoma and malignant melanoma.”
With his colleagues, Professors Ross Barnetson, Gary Halliday and Colin Chesterman, Levon is about to start human Phase I clinical trials at Sydney’s Woolcock Institute/Royal Prince Alfred Hospital in a few months.
“Safety trials are almost complete, and we’ve engaged a clinical trials coordinator to assist us in our journey during this exciting time,” he says.
The development of these new drugs may even see a cure for this disease in the not too distant future.
“Effective alternative treatments for melanoma and non-melanoma tumours beyond existing chemotherapeutic, immunotherapeutic, photodynamic therapeutic and surgical options are needed,” says Levon. “Our drugs may offer new alternative cancer treatments with potency, low cost and specificity.”
Levon hopes that his new discoveries will also help the basic understanding about cancer to be able to further developments in cancer research both in NSW around the world.
“Cancer is complex and our inability to control this disease at the present time is a symptom of our incomplete understanding of the underlying genetic, epigenetic, biochemical and cell biological basis of cancer initiation and progression,” he says. “This need to a deeper appreciation of mechanisms of disease will only change with further seminal cancer research and translation.
“I am hopeful much of this research can happen in NSW,” says Levon. “Cancer Institute NSW support for research and public awareness is the envy of all other states and territories in Australia. It has also allowed NSW to retain and attract our nation’s best cancer researchers and is a shining beacon of what health and medical research can do.”