In 2016 Associate Professor Leonie Quinn relocated to The John Curtin School of Medical Research (ANU, Canberra) to establish the Quinn Group - Cancer Models in the ACRF Department of Cancer Biology and Therapeutics. Associate Professor Quinn is trying to understand how brain cancer develops by using a genetic model through a fly. She hopes to use this information to develop new treatments.
Video transcript
[Images move through of Dr Leonie Quinn looking into a microscope, a test tube with liquid inside and Leonie standing in a lab talking and text appears: Leonie Quinn, Australian National University]
Dr Leonie Quinn: The core of this research is to understand how brain cancer develops and to develop new treatments to treat patients.
[Images move through of Leonie looking into a microscope, flies running around underneath the microscope lens and Leonie looking into the microscope while the flies can be seen on a screen]
Where my work comes in is I use a genetic model, a little fly called Drosophila Melanogaster.
[Image changes to show a test tube being turned underneath the microscope and then the image changes to show flies crawling around underneath the microscope lens]
The reason the fly works is because the genes that control cancer in us are fairly conserved in the fly.
[Image changes to show Leonie talking and then the image changes to show Leonie sitting in a lab looking through a microscope and then the image changes to show the view through the lens]
So, we can actually use the fly to dissect really quickly what those mutations that were identified in brain tumours do so we can get some biological understanding of what the mutations mean to brain tumour biology.
[Images move through of Leonie looking through a microscope]
Prior to the NHMRC funding, starting in this year we just didn’t have the capability to drive the project from basic discoveries to the clinic.
[Image changes to show Leonie standing in a laboratory and talking to the camera]
This will enable us to do that.
[Music plays and the image changes to show a fly under the microscope and then the image morphs into the NHMRC logo and text appears: Building a Healthier Australia]
End of transcript.