<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1"?> <docID>331527</docID> <postdate>2024-10-22 16:12:18</postdate> <headline>Daughter’s death drives professor’s cancer fight</headline> <body><p><img class=" wp-image-331531" src="https://citynews.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/ELvK6nBU0AE6m7c-resized-e1729546730696-1.jpeg" alt="" width="722" height="479" /></p> <caption>The loss of his daughter Josephine to aggressive brain cancer is driving Matt Dun's research. Photo: X</caption> <p><span class="kicker-line">By<strong> Tess Ikonomou</strong> in Canberra</span></p> <p><strong>When two-year-old Josephine was diagnosed with a rare brain cancer, her father switched focus, hoping he could do something about it.</strong></p> <p>Originally a pediatric leukaemia research specialist, Matt Dun began researching diffuse intrinsic pontine glioma (DIPG) in 2018 after he found out the only therapy available to his daughter was palliative radiation.</p> <p>"I faced the most challenging and tragic circumstances," he told AAP.</p> <p>Through genetic sequencing of Josephine's tumour, the determined father and his team identified a gene critical to the cancer's development.</p> <p>She became the world's first child to be given the new therapies, slowing the tumour's growth and extending her life.</p> <p>"Josie learnt to walk again, swim and have her one and only dance concert," Professor Dun said.</p> <p>"We had a great Christmas with her cousins and our family."</p> <p>Josephine died in December 2019 at the age of four.</p> <p>Prof Dun along with his wife, Dr Phoebe Dun, founded RUN DIPG, a charity dedicated to improving outcomes for patients, their families and communities.</p> <p>On Tuesday, he was awarded the Australian Society for Medical Research Medal at the National Press Club in Canberra.</p> <p>"A lot of families don't want to talk about DIPG ever again and I don't blame them," he said.</p> <p>"If Phoebe and I didn't think that what we did during Josie's journey was going to help the next child, I would have remained a leukaemia researcher and Phoebe would be a general practitioner, and we would go to Josie's grave and we would celebrate her life.</p> <p>"But we generally believe, as a community, that we can change these outcomes."</p> <p>For that to happen, the Australian government should double its contribution to the National Health and Medical Research Council to $2 billion a year, he said.</p> <p>Every dollar spent on health and medical research returned $3.20, and this could increase to $10 if Australia developed these therapies into products that could be sold.</p> <p>"Australia has world-class researchers and clinicians," Prof Dun said.</p> <p>"But we're falling behind when it comes to translating that knowledge into improved treatments for children."</p> <p>Improving links with academic institutions in other countries such as the United States would also help improve the speed and quality of research, allowing scientists to potentially develop life-saving cures.</p> <p>This had become particularly important as universities become more reactionary, Prof Dun said.</p> <p>"It's a very pop-culture tertiary education system where we've lost our independent thinking, our autonomy and now we are just a business," he said.</p> </body>