TENTERFIELD-born research scientist Jennifer MacDiarmid is making strides in her efforts to cure cancer and winning plaudits doing so.
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Dr MacDiarmid (nee Curr) was born in Tenterfield and spent her early childhood on a sheep property at Bolivia.
Her father’s work meant an eventual move to Sydney but the family returned regularly to visit relatives in Tenterfield.
Dr MacDiarmid is a co-founder of the company EngeneIC which is working to make cancer curable.
The emerging biopharmaceutical company were last week awarded for ‘Innovation’ by company Thomas Reuters.
The award was in recognition of the company’s proprietary nanocell technology designed to directly target and effectively kill tumour cells with minimal toxicity.
A recent case study published in the peer-reviewed ‘American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine’ reported that a 51-year old male experienced a near complete response of his malignant pleural mesothelioma after participating in a clinical study testing the technology.
At the end of the eight-week study period, a near-complete response was evident on the patient’s PET and CT scans, and which was confirmed four weeks later.
In addition, the patient had a significant improvement in respiratory function. During the treatment, the patient experienced only minor toxicities, including transient chills, low-grade fever, fatigue and headache.
Medical oncologists have called the study “amazing”.
“This innovation award is a wonderful surprise, and we are very excited to be recognized by Thomson Reuters as a company that is poised to make a difference to cancer patients,” Dr MacDiarmid said.
“The award is especially pleasing as it follows last week’s news that dosing with the targeted EDV (EnGeneIC Dream Vector) nanocell has enabled a near complete response in an end-stage mesothelioma patient,” she said.
Dr MacDiarmid became a research scientist and worked for the CSIRO after the family left Tenterfield.
It was while she was there, working alongside principal research scientist Dr Himanshu Brahmbhatt that a colleague, a non-smoker “with no vices as far as I could see” became ill with lung cancer.
“Then the head of CSIRO developed cancer and it made Dr Brahmbhatt and I start thinking about what we were doing in CSIRO,” she says.
“All these people were keeling over from cancer.”
Dr MacDiarmid and Dr Brahmbhatt formed EngeneIC in 2001.
“This EDV particle, this delivery particle may be able to make the difference and deliver drugs safely without toxic side effects,” Dr MacDiarmid hopes.
