The Foster Foundation Cancer Biobank at The Alfred
Through a substantial commitment from The James Foster Foundation in 2019, The Alfred’s Oncology Department was able to establish The Alfred Cancer Biobank (ACB). The ACB is now fully operational, with the first collection taking place in February 2020 and three major projects underway at the time of writing.
When cancer patients are recruited and their samples donated, the biobank stores, processes and distributes the samples to researchers and clinicians to support their projects and address important questions in cancer research.
The first exciting project the ACB is supporting is the lung cancer liquid biopsy project, led by one of our most experienced Oncologists at The Alfred, Dr Maggie Moore. Partnering with a biotech company, the team is investigating the replacement of tissue biopsies in lung cancer patients with a less dangerous and invasive procedure – a liquid biopsy, also known as the common blood test.
Another project led by Director of Oncology at The Alfred, Professor Mark Shackleton focuses on the deadliest type of breast cancer to test if new technologies developed over recent years can benefit the care of these patients. These technologies include the development of organoids, or mini tumours, in a dish, and the analysis of many different molecules produced by the patient tumour.
A third project led by another talented Oncologist at The Alfred, Dr Miles Andrews, is the Immunotherapy ‘TRIP’ Project. Immunotherapy essentially uses the patient’s immune system to attack and destroy the cancer. Although there are great promises with this approach, some patients have to unfortunately cease treatment as they suffer from serious side effects. This is a very challenging problem, and one that Dr Andrews is hoping to discover why it happens, and ways to overcome it.
Looking ahead to the future, the ACB are hoping to expand their capacity to support larger scale projects, such as cancer registries and clinical trials, while potentially establishing educational programs targeting patients and the public.
The ACB is also planning to offer internship opportunities for junior scientists to be trained in the science of biobanking and will leverage partnerships with other institutions to exchange sophisticated clinical data, ultimately improving research outcomes.
Many effective drug therapies for different cancers are only in use today because specific genetic abnormalities were initially discovered from tissue samples obtained from patients and stored in BioBanks, sometimes more than 20 years ago.
We are incredibly grateful to the late Iris Foster who established the James Foster Foundation in honour of her husband, James Foster. James was a passionate ophthalmologist and researcher at The Alfred for around 20 years, running the ophthalmology outpatient clinic and becoming the first president of the Royal College of Opthalmology in Australia, founded in 1969. Unfortunately, James passed away from bowel cancer related complications, however his legacy will continue through the powerful impact the Alfred Cancer Biobank will have on cancer research for decades to come.
