Newsletter

Twenty students awarded VCCC scholarships

The Victorian Comprehensive Cancer Centre has awarded 20 scholarships for students to undertake the Master of Cancer Sciences postgraduate study program in 2020. Scholarships are valued up to $6,480 each. Congratulations to all the scholarship winners and thank you to the students we spoke with who shared their aspirations for next year.

VCCC Consumer Engagement Toolkit shared

Plain language and a collaborative approach won the day at the VCCC Consumer Engagement Forum this month. Trust, mutual respect and finding the right person for the job were highlighted as attributes of good consumer engagement.

The forum brought together 120 people who are consumers or desire to work with consumers from across the Victorian cancer sector.

Registrations open for major scientific meeting and public forum

The VCCC Research & Education Lead, Breast Cancer program is hosting its first major conference and public forum 20 & 21 February 2020. Please join us to discover what is new, challenging and controversial in the neoadjuvant management of patients with breast cancer.  

Collective expertise develops smart approaches to clinical trials

Approaches to clinical trials are changing with the trend towards personalised medicine, as the discovery of new biomarkers and genetic mutations for smaller populations create a difficult environment for designing clinical trials.

Increasingly, cancer treatments target small populations, are given in combination, and at times, pose a significant cost to the health system. Through the VCCC’s alliance collective expertise, there is an opportunity to develop smart, adaptive clinical trials to translate discoveries and enable improved patient health outcomes.

Lead the way towards better treatments and cures for childhood cancers

An exceptional opportunity to work in partnership with world-leading organisations to drive research, teaching and training, and clinical care delivery.

The Children's Cancer Foundation Chair is a new leadership position made possible by generous funding from the Children’s Cancer Foundation in collaboration with key Victorian Comprehensive Cancer Centre (VCCC) partners: The University of Melbourne, The Royal Children’s Hospital, the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre and the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute (MCRI).

Compelling evidence results in improvements to data access

In 2013, the McKeon report highlighted that health services research is critical to understand, assist and evaluate research translation to improve the effectiveness of the Australian healthcare system. International experience showed that a systematic, academic program of outcomes-focused health services research can assist in getting the latest advances to cancer patients.

The evidence was compelling but there was a major barrier in the way.

3rd Victorian Cancer Survivorship Conference

Early in 2020 we are looking forward to a compelling line-up of speakers, exploring a broad range of issues at the 3rd Victorian Cancer Survivorship Conference, A 2020 Vision – Building on learnings… partnering for success.

This will be the third time the major meeting has occurred in Melbourne, with a sold out inaugural event in October 2016, and an equally successful conference in 2018.

Building clinical trials workforce

Clinical trials enable faster translation of research to care for patients and requires a highly trained workforce – particularly if Victoria is to expand its clinical trials activity.

The VCCC SKILLED internship program – which focuses on Clinical Trials Assistants and Study Coordinators, key roles in a clinical trials team – helps Victoria build job opportunities for the future and grow Victoria’s clinical trials workforce.