A Children’s Medical Research Institute oncologist has received The Derek Hart Memorial Award, a Ramaciotti Health Investment Grant, for her work to better understand how high dose radiation improves cancer survival.

Dr Harriet Gee is an adjunct research scientist at CMRI and staff specialist in radiation oncology at Western Sydney Local Health district, based at Westmead Hospital.

This week Perpetual, a trustee for the Clive and Vera Ramaciotti Foundations, announced the award, which is in honour of the late Professor Derek Hart and his association with the Ramaciotti Scientific Advisory Committee.

Sadly, 50,000 Australian patients died from cancer in 2022. Most patients with advanced cancer benefit from radiotherapy, and newly developed image-guidance enables radiotherapy delivery in a small number of high dose treatments – a process termed ablative radiotherapy (ART).

Compared to conventional radiotherapy, ART has greater tumour control, fewer side effects, and improved patient convenience. In the past five years, Dr Gee has established a novel collaboration between the WSLHD radiation oncology service and the CMRI Genome Integrity unit led by Professor Tony Cesare.

“Using cultured cells, we made a substantial leap in the understanding of tumour cell killing by ART,’’ Dr Gee said. “We identified there are two ‘waves’ of cell death following ART. Critically, only the second cell death wave activates a beneficial immune response. Here we will measure a time course of cell death and immune response in ART-treated patient tumours using cutting edge single cell imaging technology.’’

Dr Gee said understanding the relationship between ART, cell death and immune response will guide future clinical trials to improve cancer survival, maximise patient quality of life, and reduce healthcare costs.