Cancer Council of WA Research Fellowship Awarded

December 8th, 2011

Outstanding WAIMR researcher, Dr Archa Fox, has been granted a four-year Research Fellowship by the Cancer Council of Western Australia.

The grant follows extensive work by Dr Fox and her team investigating paraspeckles, a novel sub-nuclear structure discovered by Dr Fox. Her work with paraspeckles has earned her an international profile as a researcher.

Dr Fox's primary project for the duration of the Fellowship is to attempt to use paraspeckles as a model system for understanding new cancer targets and developing relevant drugs to battle them.

"This research will provide important and critical advances towards providing novel therapeutic strategies for targeting cancers, which could lead to a better health outcome for Western Australian cancer sufferers," says Dr Fox.

The grant from the Cancer Council of WA has been awarded to Dr Fox in the hope that her research will not only advance development in cancer research, but also assist Dr Fox in networking with her peers to encourage new researchers to progress in the same field.

"It's about investing in people and projects that support discoveries which are going to make a difference," she says.

Dr Fox says her motivation for working primarily with cancer is the desire to find cures and to learn more about this devastatingly complex disease. She describes cancer as the disease of the first world. To her way of thinking, many third-world nations suffer from largely understood diseases that flourish because of poor living conditions such as dirty drinking water and to her, cancer is the great genetic and medical puzzle.

"Thousands of scientists around the world are all working on possibilities," says Dr Fox, adding that the common goal amongst researchers is to help others.

Dr Fox was notified of her successful application by letter at the end of August and is now eagerly anticipating the appointment ceremony at the end of this year. "I feel very privileged and honoured to have been chosen and want to use this opportunity to make breakthroughs that will one day help cancer sufferers."

Dr Fox's Fellowship with the Cancer Council of Western Australia will commence in 2012.

For more information please contact:

Carolyn Monaghan
Communications Manager
Mobile: 0448 021 932 (media enquiries only)
Office: (08) 9224 0377
Email: carolyn.monaghan@waimr.uwa.edu.au