It is the kids he treats in his role as a paediatric oncologist that motivate Dr Nick Gottardo in his work as a The Kids Research Institute Australia cancer researcher.
These kids are facing the fight of their lives against brain cancer, something that kills more children in Australia than any other disease.
"I draw inspiration from the incredible children with brain cancer I am privileged to take care of. Their fighting spirit never ceases to amaze me," Nick says.
Nick began his research career 13 years ago, as a PHD student working under the direction of the head of cancer research at The Kids Research Institute Australia, Professor Ursula Kees.
Ursula and her team have helped to dramatically improve the survival rates of children with leukaemia to the point where today more than 80 percent will survive the disease.
"The poor survival rate for kids with brain tumours, compared with other childhood cancers, especially leukaemia, was what motivated me to turn my attention to brain tumours ten years ago," Nick says.
"I thought if we can apply the same principles that were applied to leukaemia we could really improve cure rates."
Nick was recently awarded a combined total of almost 200 thousand dollars in funding from Cancer Australia, the Kids Cancer Project and Cure Cancer Australia to research new treatments for brain cancer.
"Currently, very few drugs are used worldwide for the treatment of medulloblastoma, the most common brain cancer of childhood," Nick says. "The backbone of therapy is radiation therapy, which has significant long-term toxic side effects.
"There really is an urgent need for us to identify additional drugs that can effectively treat this disease. Those drugs may already exist but aren't being used to treat brain tumours."
Using robotic high-throughput screening, Nick and his team have already identified a class of anti-cancer drugs, called CHK inhibitors, which show promise.
CHK inhibitors prevent a cancer cell from repairing the damage caused by chemotherapy.
They have never before been tested against medulloblastoma cells, which is what Nick plans to do thanks to this recent funding grant.
He plans to test multiple CHK inhibitors on sophisticated models of the disease, models that mimic what the disease looks like in children.
Those that successfully reduce tumours in the models will be taken forward into clinical trials with children.
"In my career I would like to have contributed to the discovery of new therapies that are more effective than current treatments but also less damaging to the children, especially with regards to the life-long toxic effects of therapy," Nick says.
"Ultimately, I want to see 100 percent of children with this disease cured and able to go on and live healthy, happy lives."
