A prestigious $8 million fellowship from the Snow Medical Research Foundation in Australia will support research by WEHI’s Dr Stephin Vervoort into new treatment options for cancers with poor survival rates, such as leukaemia.

Dr Vervoort will use the funding to explore how glitches in the enzyme RNAPII fuel aggressive cancer growth.

His ultimate goal is to create drugs that prevent these malfunctions, with the aim of developing treatments for hard-to-treat cancers including acute myeloid leukaemia (AML).

Now in their third year, the Snow Fellowships are the biggest philanthropic investment in Australia fostering upcoming and talented biomedical researchers.

The initiative is also used to develop world-leading teams based in Australia’s pioneering research institutions.

Dr Vervoort hopes to use the Snow Fellowship to fast-track transformative discoveries and leverage his new lab at WEHI to attract talented scientists from around the world to Australia.