ONJ’S legacy of lifesaving research

OLIVIA Newton-john used her own 30-year battle with cancer to transform the treatment of others and drive the quest for new cures for the condition.

The Grammy Awardwinning w actor and singer who passed away peacefully, aged 73, raised substantial funds to set up the Olivia Newton-john Cancer Wellness and

Research Centre which is part of the Austin Hospital in Melbourne.

And she leaves behind a lasting legacy of cancer research that in the future will transform the treatment of others with the condition.

Both her father and sister Rona died from cancer and Ms Newton-john herself was diagnosed with breast cancer in 1992 when she was in her forties. Her cancer returned in 2013. The granddaughter of Nobel Prize-winning physicist Max Born, one of the founders of quantum mechanics, she had a passion for scientific research.

“My dream is that one day the ONJ Centre will only be about Wellness, and we will no longer need cancer centres because b cancer will be a thing of the past,” she said.

Researchers at the Olivia Newton-john Cancer Research Institute are working on a blood test that can tell when w breast cancer returns

In another breakthrough a recent ONJCRI study found an antibody that can identify and attack glioblastoma brain tumours and human clinical trials expected to begin late next year.

Laura Jenkins one of the ONJCRI’S first honours students is about to begin clinical trials of a breakthrough new treatment for colorectal cancer.

And Professor Andrew Scott Head from ONJCRI’S is converting oestrogen insensitive tumours, like

Triple Negative Breast Cancers, into tumours that have the oestrogen receptor, ultimately making them responsive to existing hormone therapies.

The ONJCRI has more than 140 research studies underway with its scientists involved in up to 200 clinical trials to improve the lives of people living with cancer.