In celebration of the 75th anniversary of UNSW, Prof. Caroline Ford had the opportunity to meet with Australia's policy makers and leaders.

Held at the Australian parliament house, Prof. Ford showcased the advanced technologies driving UNSW cancer research, and more importantly highlighted the issues surrounding gynaecological conditions, research, and funding.

Improving awareness and understanding of female reproductive health amongst our leaders gives Australia a chance at progressing these overlooked matters.

Written by Bonnie Werner and colleagues, our recent publication describes the clinical utility of ascites for access to molecular information of ovarian tumours. Read it here.

GCRG Postdoctoral Fellow, Dongli Liu, was named one of the recipients of the 2024 UNSW 3Rs grant funding schemes. Dongli will be working towards enabling a precision medicine approach to endometrial cancer treatment via patient-derived organoid models. Read the UNSW article here.

Shop the limited CAMILLA AND MARC 2023 collection here with all proceeds supporting our early detection research.

Our GCRG members attended the Australia and New Zealand Gynaecologic Oncology Group Annual Scientific Meeting, presenting five of our projects to our research peers and winning two awards.

Our blood donations have more lenient eligibility criteria and take a fraction of the blood volume needed for Red Cross blood donations. The blood that is donated is used to help us to test and validate our early-detection test for ovarian cancer to ensure that it is specific and sensitive enough to be useful to the general population. Blood donations are currently carried out at the UNSW Kensington campus in Sydney, Australia. If you are a woman over 18, please contact our team at earlydetection@unsw.edu.au to find out more.

“Wish you were here: A year of grief, love, struggle and success

For UNSW Science first year student Sophie Fawns, 2022 has been anything but typical. Netball's rising star opens up on a remarkable and emotionally charged year”

By Megan Mauric

Via news.unsw.edu.au

A presentation about her most recently published work won Dr Nicole Yuwono of GCRG an ‘Outstanding RapidFire Presentation Award’ at the Thomas Ashworth CTC & liquid biopsy symposium, 2022.

Endometriosis is generally under-researched and here have been no breakthroughs for better detection. In this research we compared the levels of total cell-free DNA and cell-free DNA derived from uterine lining in healthy women and women with endometriosis and found that they did not differ between the two groups. Read it.

GCRG members, Dr Dongli Liu (left) and Dr Marilisa Cortesi (right) displaying their recent research at this year’s NSW Cancer Conference in Sydney.

As part of our research into an early detection test for ovarian cancer, our scientists have been optimising the technical aspects behind working with cell-free DNA in blood.

Cell-free DNA is the basis behind our early detection test, and as it is in low concentrations, it is crucial that we know how to work with it to achieve the best, most reliable results.

Read it here.

Our research is forever in debt to the incredible contribution made by our consumer partners. These women, who have experienced the impact of gynaecological cancers first hand, help us to ensure that our research is in line with the wants and needs of the people we are working to help. Their insight directs us to conduct and communicate research that is person-focused and outcome-oriented. An enormous thank you to these women warriors.

Check out our new article, describing the effect of Zilovertamab, an anti-ROR1 monoclonal antibody, on the proliferative action of ovarian and endometrial cancer cell lines. Zilovertamab was found to decrease proliferation even in models with platinum chemotherapy resistance and homologous recombination deficiency.

Visit the article.

Recently we welcomed State MP, Dr. Michael Holland for a tour of our lab at the Lowy Cancer Research Centre.

It was a pleasure to show Dr Holland around our facilities to give him an insight into the techniques that we use day-to-day as we research gynaecological cancers and endometriosis.

Thank you to Dr. Holland for his interest in our work!

The CAMILLA AND MARC ‘Ovaries. Talk About Them.’ campaign, 2022, launches on May 2nd. The campaign opens up conversations on ovarian cancer, and contributes all proceeds from a limited designer clothing and accessory range to our early detection project. Learn more about our research or visit camillaandmarc.com to make a purchase.

Endometriosis Australia are supporting our new venture to bring together expert scientific and clinical teams from UNSW Sydney and the Royal Hospital for Women to grow and study different types of endometriosis in a laboratory setting. Cells will be isolated from women already having surgery for endometriosis, and will be used to develop and test new medications for treatment. Learn more.

Delegates from the GCRG attended the Australia and New Zealand Gynaecological Oncology Group’s Annual Scientific Meeting in Melbourne. This meeting was an opportunity for us to share and gain knowledge on the most recent advances in gynaecological oncology. We were inspired to see all of the progress in research, treatment and resources towards improving outcomes for people affected by gynaecological cancers.

Support Julia Hammans as she embarks on a Half Ironman challenge in memory of her mother, who lost her life to ovarian cancer in early 2022. Via gofundme.com.

Read about this year’s campaign in Harper’s BAZAAR.

Celebrating the completion of Nicole’s PhD thesis. Nicole’s thesis was submitted for marking in early 2022 after four years of hard work setting the ground work for our early detection test. She is continuing with us as a research associate as we await the outcome of her thesis. Well done Nicole!

Sharing ideas is essential to scientific progress. We have been collaborating with researchers who specialise in pancreatic cancer to find out whether key findings from our gynaecological cancer research can also be applied to help solve deadly pancreatic cancer. Read it.

Our newest review article contributes critical knowledge towards a clinical trial of a cell-free DNA based ovarian cancer blood test. Read it.

Our most recent publication was an interdisciplinary feat, involving expertise from collaborators across three Sydney-based universities. Google Scholar.

This year we are again teaming up with CAMILLA AND MARC to raise money and awareness for ovarian cancer. So far over $225K has been donated towards our ovarian cancer early detection project. Read more.

I Hate Teal is an organisation of the families of women diagnosed with late-stage ovarian cancer, dedicated to raising funds and awareness for the devastating illness. Visit their site to purchase a conversation-starting item that looks good and does good!

In June this year, Dave Sharma, member for Wentworth, visited our lab at UNSW to learn more about gynaecological cancers and how our research aims to lessen its burden for Australian women.

This enthralling panel discussion covered the personal message behind the ‘Ovaries. Talk About Them’ campaign and the importance of an early detection test for ovarian cancer. Visit our instagram to view highlights of the talk.

Thank you to all involved in the magnificent success of the fundraiser facilitated by Bess Paddington. $12,240 was raised to support our research.

Members of our GCRG attended Australian Fashion Week at Carriageworks in support of A/Prof. Caroline Ford who appeared on a panel to discuss the “Ovaries. Talk about them” campaign with CAMILLA AND MARC.

We are proud to celebrate, acknowledge and raise awareness for all the lives affected by ovarian cancer on May 8th each year. This years theme was “Powerful together” and our research team, along with all of our collaborators and supporters certainly are! We are working hard to show ovarian cancer who’s boss.

Endometriosis is a very common and debilitating condition and its diagnosis is invasive and difficult. Our new article investigated the potential to use circulating cell-free DNA as a biomarker for the early detection of endometriosis. The findings have directed our further research and we are excited about the new directions for this project. Read it.

Read our most recent publication from July 2021, which investigated components of ascites from a cohort of women with ovarian cancer and found cell-free DNA to be abundant and potentially an excellent candidate to provide personalised insight into ovarian cancer. Google Scholar