Australian research laboratory and biobank will allow scientists to move to the forefront of medicine, to find futuristic ways to repair defective genes and use cells to repair the body.<\/p>\n
The Ian Potter Foundation, an Australian philanthropic organisation that supports and funds initiatives of excellence and\u00a0innovation across Australia, together with the Thyne Reid Foundation, and Westmead Medical Research Foundation have\u00a0partnered to help fund two new facilities in Westmead Millennium Institute for Medical Research\u2019s new building.<\/p>\n
\u201cExpanding these facilities will position Westmead\u2019s health campus to become the leading centre in Australia and an\u00a0internationally competitive centre for cell production and clinical translational research in adoptive immunotherapy,\u201d said\u00a0Mrs Janet Hirst, CEO of The Ian Potter Foundation.<\/p>\n
As part of the expansion of Westmead Millennium Institute\u2019s research facilities on the Westmead campus, the new Human\u00a0Applications Laboratory will be used to find new ways to treat leukaemia, diabetes, heart disease and cancer.<\/p>\n
Scientists will\u00a0examine how to increase pancreatic Islet cell production, for experimental treatment of Type 1 diabetes presently limited by\u00a0capacity to just four or five transplant patients a year.<\/p>\n
The new lab will also equip Westmead Millennium Institute to develop highly innovative and progressive gene and stem cell\u00a0therapy addressing the causes of arrhythmia and repairing heart failure. The new lab will be supported by a state-of-the-art\u00a0computerised Cell and DNA biobank for access by research projects across Australia.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
\u201cScientists solved the genetic code for humans some years ago, but that took a huge amount of money and effort. Soon,\u00a0we\u2019ll be able to find out an individual person\u2019s genetic code for under $1,000 in a few minutes,\u201d said Westmead Millennium\u00a0Institute\u2019s director, Professor Tony Cunningham.<\/p>\n
\u201cThese facilities will give us a way of doing something useful with the genetic information we are now able to gather more\u00a0easily. Having found the genes that are defective, we need a way of repairing them, and that\u2019s one of the fields these \u00a0facilities will help our researchers to do. We are also moving into the era of replacing defective cells and tissues with human\u00a0cells grown in the test tube in their normal configuration.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis breaks the mould of the types of medicine that we\u2019ve used in the past. This is not just new drugs. This is the future of\u00a0medicine.<\/p>\n
“These facilities will be open to all relevant researchers on this campus and elsewhere, helping both children and adults.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are very grateful to The Ian Potter Foundation for supporting the development of the Human Applications Laboratory,\u00a0for the Thyne Reid Foundation for supporting the development of a Cell and DNA Biobank and also thank the Westmead\u00a0Medical Research Foundation and its kind supporters for their contribution to these projects.\u201d<\/p>\n
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