An outstanding philanthropic investment of $21 million will establish a groundbreaking research center to advance the precision diagnosis of diseases affecting millions of Australians.
The Colonial Foundation Diagnostics Center will use advanced “spatial biology” technologies to make better diagnoses and, in turn, deliver personalized care for patients with inflammatory diseases, such as rheumatoid arthritis and inflammatory bowel disease.
The centre, co-led by WEHI and the Royal Melbourne Hospital, and funded by the Colonial Foundation, builds on an existing partnership that has pioneered potential new tests for detecting early-stage dementia.
At a glance
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A philanthropic investment of $21 million will establish the Colonial Foundation Diagnostics Centre, a partnership between WEHI, the Royal Melbourne Hospital and the Colonial Foundation.
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The center builds on the achievements of the Colonial Foundation Healthy Aging Center, which the three organizations established in 2019 to provide a blood test for dementia.
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The Colonial Foundation Diagnostics Center extends this focus to inflammatory diseases. It will combine WEHI’s leading spatial biology technology with artificial intelligence and machine learning to provide more accurate and faster diagnosis.
About one in ten Australians have a chronic inflammatory disease, such as rheumatoid arthritis, inflammatory bowel disease, multiple sclerosis and lupus. More than 400,000 Australians suffer from dementia, two-thirds of whom are women.
Diagnostic tests that can better detect, categorize and monitor these diseases are desperately needed. Improved diagnostics would help patients during their treatment journey, which can take a long time due to the inaccurate testing options currently available.
The center will combine RMH’s clinical capabilities with WEHI’s leading, comprehensive suite of spatial biology technologies and the skilled scientists who use them, to enable precision medicine and improve patient outcomes.
Spatial biology (or spatial omics) is a revolutionary approach to understanding disease, using advanced imaging to allow scientists to examine cells in tissue samples without disrupting how they are naturally positioned in the body. This provides a deeper understanding of disease progression and helps identify potential treatment targets.
Future technology to the clinic
WEHI director Professor Ken Smith said the Colonial Foundation Diagnostics Center would seamlessly integrate WEHI’s breakthrough technologies with clinical practice at the Royal Melbourne Hospital, one of the institute’s longest-standing partners.
“The cutting-edge technologies in spatial biology allow us to understand diseases at unprecedented resolution, make fundamental discoveries directly from patient samples and equip doctors with the information they need to make the best diagnosis.
WEHI and the Royal Melbourne Hospital share a deep and historic partnership, and the Colonial Foundation Diagnostics Center will enable us to continue our close relationship and pursue our shared goals of improved knowledge and patient outcomes.
Our sincere thanks to the Colonial Foundation for their vision and generosity with this long-term investment – our scientists can’t wait to get started.”
Professor Ken Smith, Director of WEHI
Professor Shelley Dolan, chief executive of the Royal Melbourne Hospital, said the center will expand the deep scientific and clinical collaboration between the hospital and WEHI, to provide precision treatments to patients with inflammatory and other diseases.
“The Colonial Foundation Diagnostics Center will enable our teams to collect in-depth information from the blood tests and biopsies we perform on patients, allowing us to better understand their disease and provide better personalized care,” said Prof. Dolan.
“We are excited to continue our close and ongoing collaboration with WEHI – and are proud that this work will help discover diseases, make diagnoses and translate results into the best treatments for patients with inflammatory and other diseases.
“By working together, we can ensure the Center’s research focuses on the most important issues facing our patients.”
Better diagnosis, better treatment
Current diagnostic tests can provide an incomplete picture of the disease, making it difficult for doctors to treat quickly and with precision, leading to delays in accessing the best quality therapies. In many cases, multiple tests are needed to make a diagnosis.
The center will discover new biomarkers of disease, equip doctors with the best available information and make it more likely that more accurate results can be derived from a single test, delivering tailored treatments for patients more quickly.
The center will also leverage rapid advances in artificial intelligence and machine learning to quickly process and learn from the large data sets generated.
Diagnoses that would require extensive and invasive clinical testing – over days, weeks, even months – will be possible in a fraction of the time and with limited intervention, accelerating the path from disease discovery to treatment.
Get better, faster
The center builds on the foundations of the Colonial Foundation Healthy Aging Center (CFHAC), established by WEHI, the Royal Melbourne Hospital and the Colonial Foundation in 2019.
CFHAC’s achievements include building the world’s largest dataset of proteomics, or protein-targeted analyses, of clinical samples of diseases associated with aging, and discovering a potential new blood test for early-stage dementia.
André Carstens, CEO of the Colonial Foundation, said the Colonial Foundation Diagnostics Center would expand and enhance CFHAC’s discovery work, some of which is already being applied in the hospital setting.
“We have a bold vision to develop new types of diagnostic tests to detect common inflammatory diseases and dementia, and even determine which patients are most at risk for organ transplant rejection. We hope these tests will revolutionize the way these conditions are detected and treated. ”, said Mr Carstens.
“We are excited to expand our partnership with WEHI and the Royal Melbourne Hospital at the internationally leading Melbourne Biomedical Precinct in pursuit of better health outcomes for the entire community.”
Mr Carstens said further funding from other foundations, donors and philanthropists is encouraged and would greatly assist the center in achieving its ambitious goals.
“The security of long-term funding allows doctors and scientists to continue their essential and important work, and we feel privileged to be able to provide them with this level of support,” he said.
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