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  Balzan Prize for Australian Scientist

The prize is worth a million Swiss francs ($1.08 million) - more than the Nobel. Half of the amount must be donated to a research project by a young scientist the winner nominates.

Five Balzan prizes are awarded annually. The fields are not fixed like those of the Nobel Foundation but include social sciences, natural sciences, humanities and international affairs. Awards have been given in nanotechnology, astrophysics, geophysics and geochemistry as well as in more traditional fields such as mathematics.

Professor Frazer won in the preventive medicine category.

The total value of the Balzan Awards is more than double that of the Nobel Prize, which last year was worth 10 million Swedish kronor ($1.8 million) shared among all recipients.

Among previous Balzan winners are the scientist Fred Hoyle, the short-story writer Jorge Luis Borges, the musician Paul Hindemith, the sociologist Edward Shils, the philosopher Paul Ricoeur, the archaeologist Colin Renfrew and many noted historians including Sir Peter Hall, Eric Hobsbawm, Richard Southern and Samuel Eliot Morrison.

A Balzan Peace Prize is also given, usually every fourth year. Pope John XXIII, Mother Teresa of Calcutta and the French Abbe Pierre are among the recipients.

The prize was founded in 1961 by the late Angela Lina Balzan to commemorate her father Eugenio by rewarding outstanding achievements in the arts and sciences and meritorious efforts to promote peace and brotherhood.

The Scottish-born Professor Frazer heads the Queensland Diamantina Institute for Cancer, Immunology and Metabolic Medicine at the Princess Alex-andra Hospital in Brisbane. He is best known for his development of a cervical cancer vaccine.

  Ian Frazer Masquerades for St Vincent's

Professor Ian Frazer, developer of the cervical cancer vaccine, Gardasil and 2006 Australian of the Year, has accepted an invitation to attend the Justin O'Connor Foundation Ball at "Oxton Park", Harden.

The Masquerade Ball will be held on October 18th and is in support of the Cancer Research Unit of Sydney's St Vincent's Hospital.

Professor Robyn Ward said she is delighted Professor Frazer will once again attend the Ball in a show of support for the ongoing effort by the team at the Research Unit.

The O'Connor family are also very pleased to be able to welcome Ian and his wife Caroline back to "Oxton Park" after their first visit in 2006.

Helen Proos, Chairman of the Foundation said the family are very happy to have the endorsement of such a highly regarded scientist who also participated in and thoroughly enjoyed the weekends activities.

Over the past 8 years the Justin O'Connor Foundation has donated almost $750,000 to the St Vincent's Cancer Research Unit and a substantial amount to the communities of Harden and Young to assist with the care of country based cancer patients.

There are limited tickets remaining for the Masquerade Ball and also in the 500 Club Raffle - which will see one lucky person win a 5 night holiday for 2 on the Great Barrier Reef's, luxurious Lizard Island.

Tickets for the Ball are $199 and the Raffle has a total of just 500 tickets at $100 each - great odds!

Click here to purchase tickets, or call Lyne at St Vincent's on 02 9295 8376

  Greetings from "Oxton Park"

We are delighted to announce we will be hosting a Masquerade Ball at “Oxton Park” on October 18, 2008.

The plans are well underway and we have received fantastic support from Sponsors, both “old and new”.

If you would like to be involved – at whatever level, please submit your details for more information on how to become a sponsor.

We will mail the invitations in early June so if you have had a change of address or would like to add a name or names to the list, please contact us, or call Lyne Peebles at St Vincent’s on 02 9295 8376.

Below is an update from Professor Robyn Ward on the most recent developments in the Cancer Research Unit.

Whilst we might find the explanation a little technical, the bottom line is - progress is being made – and your contributions have helped it happen.

Many thanks and we look forward to another great weekend in October.

Kindest regards,

Helen Proos
Chairman

  Foundation included on St Vincent's Honour Roll

The Justin O'Connor Foundation are delighted to be included on the new St Vincent's Hospital Honour Board. The Board is located in the foyer of St Vincent's and was unveiled at a function on 03 April, 2008. Joining the celebration and pictured to the right are three generations of O'Connors represented by Monica O'Connor, Helen Proos and Emily O'Connor and from the St Vincent's Cancer Research Unit, Lyne Peebles.

  Update from Professor Robyn Ward

MLH1: Last year we told you about how we had discovered a new way in which cancer could be passed from one generation to the next; a story that received worldwide media attention. The usual means by which cancer is inherited is through passage of a mutation (spelling mistake) in the genetic code of a gene from parent to child, just as a typographical error is faithfully photocopied. Last year we showed instead that a chemical coating around the cancer-protector gene, ‘MLH1’, causing gene paralysis, was passed from a mother who had developed bowel and uterine cancers at a young age to one of her children, but the coating had been removed in two other children. It was always thought that this type of error would be stripped away during the reproductive cycle, which made this finding so striking. In fact, this was found to have occurred in two of this mother’s other children – the coat around their gene had in fact been stripped away and the gene’s function had been restored in them.

During the ensuing months, the team led by molecular geneticist Dr Megan Hitchins, and directed by Prof Robyn Ward, has continued work on this and have made some additional striking findings. We have now found that in males whose gene is ‘coated’ in all the main tissues of their body, putting them at high risk of developing cancer, their sperm appears entirely normal as the coat has been completely stripped away. This finding is most intriguing and means one of two things: either this type of defect can only be transmitted from mother to child and not from father to child; or the coat may be taken off and put back on again at a later stage! Clearly this mechanism of causing cancer is more complex than previously thought, and will require further work in other families with this problem before it can be fully understood.

These findings were published in the top genetics journal Nature Genetics in November 2007. Dr Hitchins presented the findings over the past year at talks in the high impact late-breaking session of the American Association for Cancer Research in Los Angeles, at the International Society for Gastrointestinal Hereditary Tumours in Japan and at the Australian COMBIO conference. By bringing these findings to the forefront through the media and presentations to other medical and scientific experts at international conferences, the laboratory is now receiving DNA samples referred from cancer clinics throughout Australia and the world to receive screening for this type of cancer-causing defect.

This has also leveraged further funding from competitive government grant funding bodies and Dr Hitchins and Prof Ward will receive $1million from the Cancer Institute NSW and the National Health and Medical Research Council over three years to determine if additional types of cancer are similarly caused by a coating around other cancer genes. This perfectly illustrates how some start-up funding from philanthropic groups can lead to flourishing research that then goes on to receive the mainstream funding it deserves.

Women and Cancer: In new work by our team, we have also found that a particular type of bowel cancer most frequently affecting older women is caused by a coating of not just the ‘MLH1’ cancer-protector gene, but by the simultaneous coating of a number of neighbouring genes across an entire ‘genetic suburb’. This served to black-out that ‘genetic suburb’. Some of the other genes trapped in this paralysing coat were also cancer-protector genes, and this may influence how quickly cancers progress. These findings were published in the leading cancer journal Cancer Research in October 2007 and were funded by the Justin O’Connor Foundation, the Cure Cancer Australia Foundation and the Cancer Council of NSW. The group is now looking to see how early this occurs to see if they can identify women at risk of developing this type of cancer in future.

  The Foundation raises $750,000 for cancer research

The Justin O'Connor Foundation was formed with the assistance of St Vincent's Hospital in 2000 to raise money to help the fight against cancer.

In 2006 the Justin O'Connor Foundation reached the milestone of $750,000 raised for cancer reasearch. The funds raised are donated directly to St. Vincents Hospital for use in their groundbreaking research into treatments and, hopefully one day, a cure for cancer. A portion goes to Can Assist for use within local communities to provide financial and practical support for cancer sufferers and their families.

For more information about the great work done by St. Vincent's and Can Assist, please visit the following links:

St Vincent's Hospital Sydney - Blood Diseases & Cancer Research Unit
Can Assist

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