BY OLIVIA DILLON
Healthcare professionals and people living with cancer will benefit from the $7 million Translational Cancer Research Capacity Building Grant, awarded by the NSW Government through the Cancer institute NSW.
The grant was announced on Friday 9th July 2021 by the NSW Regional Health Partners, a partnership which consists of the University of Newcastle, University of New England, HMRI, Hunter New England Central Coast Primary Health Network, Calvary Mater Newcastle and the local health districts of the Central Coast, Mid North Coast and Hunter New England.
The injection will fund a project which aims to build an innovative cancer research network throughout the state, with a particular focus on those in rural and regional areas.
NSW Regional Health partner Chairman Steward Dowrick, said people in these areas are often excluded from research.
"We're a partnership with a common interest in improving the lives of people in rural and regional NSW, and cancer is a part of many of those lives," Mr Dowrick, who is also Chief Executive of the Mid North Coast Local Health District, said.
"It is extremely rewarding for NSW Regional Health Partners to be recognised as the translation centre and partnership to make this innovation happen in cancer care."
The research will be run out of the University of Newcastle and will be led by Associate Professor Dr Craig Gedye.
Dr Gedye, who is also a medical oncologist, hopes the project will help to embed cancer research into the state's healthcare systems by building on the resources we already have.
"Doing research is hard at the best of times and when you're facing the demands of clinical care in rural and regional settings, it's really hard to focus," Dr Gedye said.
"By making the cost of doing research- the price that people have to pay in terms of time- much smaller, both for the patients as participants and for clinicians and researchers, we are hoping to enable teamwork between the University and healthcare systems, so they may do better research at a much smaller impost."
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| Craig Gedye Picture: HMRI website |
