This is the foundation for understanding everything. Thanks to basic science, we know how blood cells carry oxygen so we can breathe; we know that DNA has all the information needed to make an entire person; and we know how to transform an unwanted infectious virus into a cure for an inherited disease.

'Basic' clearly doesn't mean unimportant.

In fact, basic science research is the crucial first step towards understanding how the body works, what goes wrong in diseases like cancer, and how to fix it. Today's medicines and tomorrow's revolutionary new treatments depend upon it.

While all research relies on basic science, CMRI's research has the goal of helping to improve the health and wellbeing of people, especially children. That means it is often classified as 'medical research'.

Much of CMRI's research over the last 55 years has become a part of standard medical practice (see Our History and Achievements).

What's more, we have many research programs ongoing right now that have advanced beyond discovering the crucial basics and are producing tangible benefits:

• Our drug development programs are perfecting new and better treatments for cancer, epilepsy and other diseases.
• The Gene Therapy Research Unit (a joint initiative with The Children's Hospital at Westmead), conducted the first ever gene therapy clinical trial to cure a genetic disease, and they have several clinical trials underway to help children with cancer and rare diseases.
• The newly-established Telomere Analysis Centre can help clinicians better diagnosis telomere-related diseases, like DKC, which can cut short the lives of children as young as 6-years-old.