Research Institute: Western Australian Institute for Medical Research
Amount granted: $1.2 million
Year granted: 1999
The grant funded the construction and equipping of eight state-of-the-art research laboratories at the Royal Perth Hospital Medical Research Foundation building and the Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital. The new laboratories at Western Australian Institute for Medical Research (WAIMR) became home to 100 researchers specialising in cancer, cardiovascular, endocrinology and neuroscience.
This grant is pivotal to the Institute to help reverse the brain drain from Western Australia. They plan to recruit the best international and interstate researchers. Without the new facilities at WAIMR elite medical researchers could not be attracted to WA.
What your donations have achieved
Cervical cancer vaccine
We gave initial seed funding to Professor Ian Frazer’s research into the cervical cancer (HPV). Over 150 million doses of vaccine have been delivered worldwide to date.
The pill that melts away cancer
Our long term support of cancer research at WEHI has led to a treatment that melts away certain advanced forms of chronic lymphocytic leukaemia. It has been approved for clinical use in the US, European Union and Australia and is being trialed for other types of cancer.
Personalised cancer diagnosis
In 2015, we awarded $10 million seed funding to an ambitious cancer proteome project that aims to provide each cancer patient a personalised treatment plan within 36 hours. This will improve treatment outcomes and help avoid unnecessary treatments.
Zero childhood cancer
We are one of the founding partners of the initiative that will tackle the most serious cases of infant, childhood and adolescent cancer in Australia. It is a key step towards the program vision of one day helping to cure 100% of children with cancer.
