Why do some people get cancer?

Why do some people get cancer, while others don’t? It’s not fair. It’s not predictable. And it’s not acceptable to molecular biologist and cancer researcher Associate Professor Simon Conn that we don’t know the answer to this question. The way we understand and treat cancer needs a revolution, and that’s what Simon desperately wants to deliver.

Simon has a friend who lost her sister to late-stage brain cancer. It’s an awful diagnosis to receive. This type of cancer has a shockingly low survival rate, which—despite all our medical advancements—hasn’t improved in the past 30 years. One reason is that the early signs of brain cancer are easily explained away. People think they’re getting headaches or are fatigued because they’re too stressed or lacking sleep. It’s only when there are vision, speech or balance problems that people start neurological testing and find tumours. By then, it can be too late. On the other hand, surgeons can’t cut out a brain tumour in the same way they might approach a tumour elsewhere in the body. When surgeons remove a tumour, they also remove the surrounding ‘healthy’ tissue so that no part of the tumour is left behind and the chance of recurrence is slim. When it comes to brain tumours, that tactic is unachievable; cutting out too much of the brain can kill the patient or destroy important functions (like the ability to make decisions, vision, movement or memory). Therefore, recurrence of brain cancer is common.

Many lives could be saved if we could detect brain tumours earlier. This idea stuck with Simon. It motivated him to investigate brain tumours, why they develop, and how we can diagnose them earlier.

The science of their discovery

The team at Flinders have access to a neurological tumour bank, which supplies tumours of early stage, mid stage and late stage glioblastoma. Their research uncovered that a certain type of molecule (circular RNAs) can produce cancer-causing mutations and this brings the team one step closer to understanding how brain cancer develops. Because circular RNAs can be detected in the blood, this has also led to the development of a non-invasive blood test to detect tumours in the brain—and also how far they have progressed. In the future, doctors could prescribe a simple blood test for brain cancer in the early stages of diagnosis and act before it’s too late. Oncologists would have a new way to quickly and easily track the effectiveness of treatment. It’s a breakthrough that could help turn the tides on brain cancer.

Sharing ideas… and the elevator

Simon’s research is the kind that can be done in a dark laboratory, without talking to anyone. But working in isolation can never lead to the same translational results as working hand-in-hand with doctors, nurses and people with cancer. One of the drawcards of Flinders is the collaborative and cross-disciplinary teams. That’s why Simon wanted to work here. Flinders is the only South Australian university to combine what he describes as ‘hard-core research labs’ with clinical trials and cancer treatment. Simon’s research lab is on Level 3 of the Flinders Centre for Innovation in Cancer building, which is also home to patient treatment rooms. It’s not uncommon for a researcher to step into the lift and see a friend coming into the clinic. It can be a shocking moment—especially when the friend hasn’t yet shared news of their cancer diagnosis. Simon hopes to never have that experience but knows that it’s inevitable. It’s terrible that there are people with cancer, however it’s the greatest strength of Flinders Cancer Research that these people can be treated on the same floor and access the latest medicine in clinical trials.

The patients that Simon’s team meet in the lift are always encouraging. They’ll typically tell the researchers to ‘keep working hard.’ It’s a great reminder that what you’re doing matters and a wakeup call if you’re having a bad day. Simon is particularly grateful that his students get that experience. It fosters the tremendous drive that Simon feels; he wants to use his time to save the lives of people with cancer, preferably before they’re ever sick in the first place.

We’re not here for glory. We’re here to help people and the only way to do that is to embrace a proper, integrated approach to research.

Married to the job

One of the talented people in Simon’s team is Dr Vanessa Conn. The husband and wife team met while studying at Flinders University and have shared their research experience in laboratories in South Australia and France ever since. It’s not something they can ever switch off in their lives. When they started out researching molecular biology in plants, they had a rule that they’d stop talking about work the moment they reached a point on the way to the car park. Now, their love for the work means that they don’t feel the need to stop sharing their ideas. They’ve even brought their primary school-aged children into the lab to see how it all works. When Simon and Vanessa were studying plants, the kids were not so interested. Now they proudly tell their friends and teachers how Mum and Dad are curing cancer.

For Simon, the reality of being a cancer researcher is feeling guilty when you can’t help someone who is going through the worst. He says the hardest part of that is watching parents lose their children. Because of his friend, he always wanted to work on brain cancer. But a chance observation now has Simon expanding his research to leukaemia, with a focus on young children.

When asked what Simon would do to celebrate developing a blood test for cancer—either brain cancer or leukaemia—he says, ‘I’d start looking at other cancers.’ Although he does admit to being superbly placed for celebration; his house is filled with champagne thanks to three years of working in France. He goes on to say he wouldn’t celebrate until he hears from people who’d benefitted, whose lives he and his wife have saved, and even then, he wouldn’t really need any richer reward.