Targeting high-risk cancers in children with drugs to kill free radicals

The team, from University of Newcastle and Hunter Medical Research Institute, will receive the money from Cancer Australia for pre-clinical testing over three years.

The research will examine treatments for acute myeloid leukaemia (AML) and aggressive brain tumours called diffuse midline gliomas (DMG).

They are responsible for about 30 per cent of all childhood deaths from cancer.

"Kids with high-risk AML have a five-year survival rate of just one in two," Professor Matt Dun said.

"DMG has a five-year survival rate of less than 1 per cent."

Professor Dun and his team discovered that AML and DMG cancers produce large amounts of free radicals.

"People would have heard of free radicals and antioxidants that neutralise them. If there's too many of them, they damage organs and cells.

"They also further damage tumour cells and that can drive the way they become resistant to standard treatments.

"Currently, long-term survival for affected children hinges on their response to standard treatments we have in the clinics."

Professor Dun said initial work in this area was funded with a pilot grant from the Hunter Children's Research Foundation.

The new research through Cancer Australia - a government body - aimed to "shut off the way the cells produce free radicals".

"If we can do that, then maybe we can make standard treatment work better and increase the response to established therapies."

He said a protein in cancer types that produce free radicals would be targeted with a NOX inhibitor drug.

"We were on the hunt for a drug given to humans. We found one currently being used in a clinical trial in Europe for patients with diabetes.

"The drugs get into the brain to target that particular protein. Hopefully then they make the cells more responsive to chemo and radiation."

It's hoped the research will lead to a clinical trial in the next few years.