Safer Therapies

Accelerating discoveries to improve survival rates and quality of life.

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Safer Therapies

Aim: Invest $7.4 million to evaluate new therapies and models of care that minimise cancer treatment-related toxicities to improve long-term quality of life while maintaining survival outcomes for young patients.

Childhood cancer is different from adult cancer, but most treatments used for young cancer patients were developed for adults, resulting in severe side-effects and long-term health issues in young, growing bodies. 

The Safer Therapies Impact Program funds research to develop therapies and care models that reduce cancer treatment-related toxicities, aiming to improve long-term quality of life for young cancer patients, without compromising on their survival rates.

Safer Therapies focus areas

Our Safer Therapies Impact Program seeks to transform the safety and efficacy of paediatric cancer therapies by addressing toxicity at every stage of treatment, including chemotherapy, radiation therapy, stem cell transplant and emerging therapies.

We will priortise projects that:

- Investigate new drug delivery systems, protective agents and minimally invasive treatments

- Apply a personalised treatment approach to predicting treatment-related toxicities, based on biological, health-related, environmental, lifestyle and psychological factors

Projects that also harness our Innovation Accelerators are encouraged to apply, fostering a collaborative ecosystem that maximises impact.

Potential impact

Children’s Cancer CoLab is guided by scientific rigour across all our Impact Programs, and our comprehensive evaluation framework sets clear objectives to measure the impact of our funding. The potential impact resulting from our Safer Therapies Impact Program is:

Decreased long-term treatment-related morbidity without compromising survival rates.
Funding process

Grant Funding

Our program funding is allocated through a competitive process underpinned by robust expert review. We adopt scientific rigour to evaluate each proposal’s potential for impact and alignment with identified childhood cancer research and care priorities.