Bioplatforms Australia is investing in a national collaborative initiative to generate the critical biomolecular datasets required by Australian researchers to understand melanoma and potential interventions.

Melanoma in Australia represents a major, unsolved public health challenge. It remains one of the leading cancer killers, especially of young and middle-aged adults. This is partly because prognosis remains poor and largely unpredictable for all but early stage disease, and there are essentially no effective treatments for advanced disease.

However, 'after decades of stagnation, recent therapeutic advances in melanoma seem on the horizon.'   Recent investigation into the genetic basis of the disease has enabled the discovery of therapeutic agents that specifically target this cancer type. As ultra violet light, the casual agent of melanoma, is such a potent carcinogen this cancer type contains many different mutations. The generation of biomolecular datasets characterising melanoma tumours will aid in the determination of the 'driver' mutations behind this disease and aid in the development of further therapeutics.

The Datasets

• Genome sequences from a large proportion of the melanoma patient cohort will be made available as a public resource to scientists and clinicians.
• A subset of samples will be augmented with various modules of Systems Biology analysis including additional gene expression, protein and metabolite data.

The Collaboration

In order to maximise the impact of this collaborative initiative, alignment with a number of existing Australian Melanoma research contributions has been fostered including:

• Queensland Institute of Medical Research
• Westmead Millennium Institute
• Melanoma Institute Australia
• University of Sydney
• John Curtin School of Medical Research
• Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre (Melbourne Melanoma Project)
• Western Australian Institute for Medical Research
• Edith Cowan University

Please contact Dr Anna Fitzgerald for further information.

Anna Fitzgerald
T:  02 9850 1174 | This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

¹BRAF Targeted Therapy Changes the Treatment Paradigm in Melanoma. Ribas and Flaherty. Nature Reviews Clinical Oncology, 8, 2011.

Photograph: Immunofluorescent staining of melanoma cells. Helen Rizos, Westmead Institute for Cancer Research