Medicinal chemist Guillaume Lessene and his team of 10 have been quietly working on an anti-cancer drug for 13 years.
Their innovative work in the field of cancer therapy was recently recognised when Associate Professor Lessene took out the inaugural Dr John Dixon Hughes Medical Research Innovation Medal for his discovery and development of potential anti-cancer drugs. He also won a $50,000 cash prize for further research.
The French-born Bundoora resident began his tenure at the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute after moving to Australia in 2002 with his wife, a fellow medicinal chemist.
Associate Professor Lessene has dedicated the last decade to studying the process that cells undergo before dying.
“Usually a lot of anti-cancer drugs try to stop cells from dividing, because they divide abnormally. A lot of drugs try to stop that abnormal proliferation,” Associate Professor Lessene said.
He said unhealthy cells usually die. “This happens all the time to clean the body of cells that are damaged or not needed any more. It’s really important for the body to remain healthy.”
Cancer cells develop the ability to stop the cell death process.
Associate Professor Lessene said he and his team of medicinal chemists and biologists were trying to re-establish the cell death process in cancer cells.
Their research has been demonstrated in laboratories but is yet to be used with human patients. “We have between five and 10 years left on the project,” he said. “It’s still a very active research project.”
Their project is unusual in that at one point Associate Professor Lessene and his team collaborated with two commercial pharmaceutical companies that were interested in later developing the drug.
The 41-year-old medicinal chemist said few drugs were developed in academia, making their development of potential anti-cancer drugs something of a novelty.
“The institute has a lot of world-class biologists, but it’s very hard for that research to be translated into drugs within Australia.”
He said drug development here was dominated by major pharmaceutical companies and biotech companies. “The fact I received the award is great support for academic drug discovery. And it recognises work that was done entirely in Australia for drug development.”
Institute director Professor Doug Hilton said Associate Professor Lessene was one of the institute’s shining stars. “His outstanding contribution to biomedicine has garnered a strong international reputation and signals his emergence as a leader in medical research.”
