October group meeting

Dr. Adnan Ali, MBBS PhD, Research Fellow, Clinical Hub for Interventional Research (CHOIR), John Curtin School of Medical Research, Australian National University will tell us about research the John Curtin School will be conducting to target the MYC gene, which is a major driver of tumour growth and survival across numerous cancers, with a newly developed MYC inhibitor drug – PMR-116. He will also tell us about other research into prostate cancer treatments.

Dr. Ali is a cancer researcher with 14 years of international experience across India, the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia. He qualified in medicine (MBBS) in India in 2012, completed research fellowships in the US and UK, and was awarded his PhD in the UK in 2021.

Much of Dr Ali’s career has focused on prostate cancer. He has worked on STAMPEDE, one of the largest prostate cancer treatment trials in the world, which has changed the standard of care for men with advanced prostate cancer. Within the STAMPEDE trial he led a study showing, for the first time in the world, the relationship between the extent of cancer spread and the benefit of treating the original prostate tumour with radiotherapy, which helps doctors identify which men are likely to benefit from this treatment. He has also worked on molecular biomarkers, which examine the biology of individual cancers to better predict how they behave and respond to treatment, and on large population studies of the disease.

Since 2024, Dr Ali’s work has centred on multinational cancer clinical trials. These include the IMPALA-KS trial in Africa and the TARGET-MYC trial in Australia, which is testing a new treatment for cancers driven by a gene called MYC.

Dr. Ali is currently based at the Clinical Hub for Interventional Research, led by Prof. Polizzotto, at the John Curtin School of Medical Research, Australian National University in Canberra.