Monday Lunch Livestream

With Professor Clare Scott

28 March 2022

Recent advancements in ovarian cancer research help to match ovarian cancer patients with the right treatment for their cancer. Researchers have made a discovery that could help more Australian women with ovarian cancer gain access to game-changing treatments called PARP inhibitors. 

A PARP inhibitor is a type of targeted cancer therapy that is effective in cancers that have acquired faults in the way they repair DNA, making them particularly sensitive to DNA-damaging drugs. BRCA1 and BRCA2 are well-known DNA repair genes that, when faulty, make cancer cells susceptible to PARP inhibitors.

Professor Scott holds the Chair in Gynaecological Cancer at the University of Melbourne, is Joint Division Head of Clinical Translation and is a laboratory head at WEHI. She is a medical oncologist at the Royal Melbourne and Royal Women’s Hospitals and Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre. In this presentation, she describes how researchers are tackling PARP inhibitor resistance, including by understanding super-responders to this therapy.