'No lives lost to brain cancer' is the Brain Cancer Centre's vision, offering annual grant funding to some of Australia's most brilliant researchers.
We are delighted to share that two RMH powerhouses, Professor Kate Drummond AM and Dr Heidi McAlpine, are recipients of a Brain Cancer Centre grant in 2025.
The project
The neuroscience of brain cancer: investigations into the neuro-glioma synapse
Brain Cancer is unique in that it is formed in the brain, an electrically active network. Decoding the electrical activity and networking of brain cancer cells is central to our understanding of this complex and devastating condition.
This project investigates the influence of glioma on the brain, and vice versa. In particular, we study the communication pathway between glioma cells and neurons termed the ‘neuron-glioma synapse’. This synapse directly drives tumour proliferation, highlighting the strong imperative for a neuroscience-based approach to investigate brain cancer. Specifically, knowledge regarding the neuron-glioma synapse is vital to understand how brain cancer develops and manifests in the human brain.
Since glioma integrates into neural networks within the brain, there is a strong imperative for a neuroscience-based approach to investigate brain cancer.
Primary brain tumours, compared to other cancers, is that they arise and exist within electrically excitable tissue (neuronal networks). This is an important feature yet to be properly explored in human disease and may be a contributing factor to the limited success of current treatments, as they fail to address this unique characteristic of glioma
There is a pressing need to improve our understanding of glioma and to develop better diagnostic tools, which will lead to improved stratification, and more effective therapies.
Congratulations Kate and Heidi, and their fellow recipients for 2025.
2025 BCC grant recipients | The Brain Cancer Centre 21/01/25