Landerer Fellowship strengthens cancer research ties with France

A new philanthropic gift  – the Landerer Fellowship – is providing opportunities for collaboration between the University of Melbourne Centre for Cancer Research and French cancer research laboratories.

Dr Mélodie Grandin recently completed her PhD at the Cancer Centre of Lyon, and has joined Professor Frederic Hollande's Tumour Heterogeneity in Metastatic Cancer lab as a Post-Doctoral Research Fellow thanks to a generous donation from Mr John Landerer.

Professor Hollande’s lab is working to improve patient prognosis and treatment response in patients with aggressive bowel cancer. The group use innovative technologies such as organoids and barcoding, and work to characterise the role tumour heterogeneity plays in metastatic cancer.

The long-term survival of patients with metastatic disease is poor, and treatment options are limited for patients who are not eligible for surgery and do not respond to standard chemotherapy.

Dr Grandin’s exploratory work focuses on finding effective treatments for liver metastasis from bowel cancer through understanding how cells escape current treatments, and testing novel drugs on organoids – 3D tissue models grown from patient tumour samples.

“We are very grateful for this generous donation. The Landerer Fellowship has made it possible for me to join a leading metastatic cancer research group, and further connect our two institutions, collaborating on translational research to improve outcomes for metastatic cancer patients,” Dr Grandin said.

Through the Landerer Fellowship, Mélodie will be working with Professor Hollande’s group through to 2022.