Medical Minds

Therapies and drugs have evolved enormously in the last 30 years. For example, in cancer, where previously our options were limited to surgery, chemotherapy and radiotherapy, we’re now hearing terms like cancer immunotherapy, targeted therapies and even cancer vaccines. Many of these are biologics.

In this episode you’ll hear from Dr Rachel Galimidi who is at the forefront of biologics drug development and is working to...

Pancreatic cancer is one of the toughest cancers to treat – it’s aggressive, often diagnosed late, and doesn’t respond well to standard therapies. In this episode, we meet Professor Marina Pajic who is working at the cutting-edge of science to transform how we understand and treat this disease.

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Garvan is one of Australia's largest independent medical research institutes with a single focus: to make discoveries that will improve health for all. In this episode, you’ll hear from Executive Director Professor Benjamin Kile on how he came to be at Garvan's helm and his strategy for driving extraordinary science that will have transformational impact for patient lives.

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In Australia alone, 50 people are diagnosed with Parkinson's every day. Therapy options are limited, as they are for other movement and muscle disorders, such as ataxia and dystonia. In this episode of Medical Minds, we meet neurologist and researcher Associate Professor Kishore Kumar, who is working on the next big breakthroughs for treatment.

Support Garvan research: https://www.garvan.org.au/support-us/give-now

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The human body has an incredible capacity to heal itself – whether it’s a paper cut, a broken bone, or your lungs recovering after a chest infection. But not all types of healing are good for us. Cancers seem to have hijacked the healing process to protect themselves from treatments and to spread more easily around the body. In this episode, we speak to Associate Professor Thomas Cox, who is working to put a stop to this and make e...

More than 33,000 people in Australia today are affected by multiple sclerosis, a disabling disease of the brain and spinal cord, for which there is no cure. In this episode, you’ll meet Dr Seyhan Yazar and Professor Tri Phan who are working to better manage, treat and prevent MS, by investigating what could be a critical link between this disease and a very common virus, the Epstein-Barr Virus.

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Scientific advances have led us to diagnosing, treating and preventing cancer much better than ever before. Still, 10 million people die of cancer every year and what we need now are transformative ideas. In this episode you’ll hear from Dr Amanda Khoury and Dr Braydon Meyer who are using AI to develop the next generation of cancer treatments and diagnostics.

Support Garvan research: https://www.garvan.org.au/support-us/give-now

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Our gastrointestinal system contains more than 70% of the body’s immune cells and can house more microbial cells than there are human cells in our entire body. Unravelling all that complexity is more important than ever, with conditions affecting the gut, such as Crohn’s and ulcerative colitis, on the rise. In today’s episode, we speak to Dr Kylie James who is taking a genetic deep dive – using single cell genomics – to develop mor...

The relief of a successful cancer treatment is all too often marred by a distressing, lingering uncertainty of whether a cancer will return. Cancer cells can tuck away and lie dormant for years before waking up to spread once again. In this episode we speak to Professor Peter Croucher who is tackling some of the toughest problems in cancer research – how can we track cancer cells on their way to becoming dormant, how can we stop th...

Genomics is fundamentally changing the way we think about health and disease and driving forward personalised treatment options that would have been pure science fiction just a few years ago. Still, some parts of our genome are more ‘mysterious’ than others. In this episode, we meet Garvan researcher Dr Ira Deveson who is spearheading cutting-edge DNA sequencing methods to future-proof how genomics will integrate into healthcare.

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Every day, we accumulate trillions of mutations in our body’s genetic material. How does our body stay the course amidst this constant genetic change and what's the link between our genes and our well-being? In this episode we speak to clinician researcher Associate Professor Owen Siggs who explains why genomics may be as much a part of your future GP visits as taking your blood pressure or checking your cholesterol.

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If you’ve ever seen an image of fluorescent cancer cells under the microscope, you may agree that it’s hard to understand how something so beautiful could be so deadly. In this episode, we speak to Professor Paul Timpson who is visualising pancreatic cancer in vivid detail to understand what the cancer's weak spots are and how to improve treatments for patients.

Support Garvan research: https://www.garvan.org.au/support-us/give-now

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A few hundred years ago, the idea of cells moving around in your body, protecting you from disease would have seemed like complete fantasy. Today, we don’t just know those remarkable cells exist – but we can visualise them in vivid detail. In this episode we meet Professor Tri Phan, a clinician-researcher who has combined his expertise in medicine and microscopy to unravel how our immune system works and how to stop it from going w...

A tumour is often thought of as a kind of chaotic tissue – cancer cells multiplying without control or reason, wreaking havoc in the body with devastating outcomes. In this episode we speak to Professor Alex Swarbrick who is charting an ‘atlas’ through that chaos, using cutting-edge genomic technologies to reveal the intricate inner workings of breast cancer.

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Thanks to technology and the convenience of our modern lifestyle, we are far less active today than previous generations. But how have our bodies adjusted to that massive physical slow-down? In this episode, we speak with endocrinologist and clinical scientist Professor Katherine Samaras, who is working every day to improve lives.

Support Garvan research: https://www.garvan.org.au/support-us/give-now

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There's no doubt that medical research is accelerating – thanks to cutting-edge technology we can do experiments faster, at a bigger scale and crunch more data more efficiently. But today we're talking to Associate Professor Liz Caldon, who is slowing down her experiments to understand how we can better tackle cancer drug resistance.

Support Garvan research: https://www.garvan.org.au/support-us/give-now

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APDS is a rare inherited immune condition that has been reported in less than 300 people worldwide. So how could studying it help improve outcomes for the millions of people who live with autoimmune disease? Today, we meet A/Prof Elissa Deenick, a researcher who is taking a deep dive into the genetics of immune cells to make sure no patient gets left behind.

Support Garvan research: https://www.garvan.org.au/support-us/give-now

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