One thing we know for sure is that with the ongoing support of industry professionals and people like you, we’re getting closer to finding a cure. Our efforts are uncovering potential cures for diseases beyond bone marrow failure, and treatments for a wider range of blood cancers are within our sights. From our early studies replicating a diseased cell in a test tube, to our current preparations to move into clinical trials, it’s amazing how far we’ve come.
Building on strong foundations
Captain Courageous launched in 2010. Since then we’ve raised over $3million and established and funded Australia’s first national collaborative research program into rare bone marrow failure diseases.
Remarkably, our research efforts so far have identified a suite of existing drugs approved to treat other diseases in humans that are effective in treating experiment models of bone marrow failure. With more research, these drugs could potentially be repurposed to treat patients with bone marrow failure syndromes.
The process from discovery to clinical trial can take close to 10 years, and cost in excess of tens of millions of dollars. From where we stand, we could have real answers within three to five years, at a fraction of the cost.
Uncovering hidden strengths
All good heroic tales have an unexpected twist. Ours was that, through our research so far, we’ve identified that the mechanisms underlying certain bone marrow failure syndromes can be harnessed to kill blood cancers such as leukaemia, myeloma and lymphoma.
Since that discovery, we’ve pushed on with the knowledge. We’re not only providing new information for the treatment of bone marrow failure syndromes; we’re developing a new class of drugs to treat incurable cancers.
Where to next?
With our eyes on the future, we plan to expand our consultation with leading Australian academics and researchers while sponsoring additional projects to accelerate the path to a cure. Our current ADBA research program was completed in December 2016, with pre-clinical testing as the new focus for funding and a new research program as the next step.
All funding so far has allowed us to achieve incredible things. From here, every dollar donated could help us change the world. We’ve seen that tireless research into rare diseases often delivers a greater understanding of those that are more common, with benefits that are far reaching. We invite you to join our mission – every helping hand allows us to reach even further.
