One such researcher is Dr Julia Dixon-Douglas, who is the recipient of a 2026 Breast Cancer Trials Clinical Fellowship Grant. Her research examines why some patients with early-stage triple-negative breast cancer respond to immunotherapy, while others do not. Her study seeks to identify biomarkers that will allow immunotherapy to be individually tailored for each patient, improving outcomes and reducing side effects.
Breast Cancer Trials has welcomed the Federal Government's budget announcement that it will increase disbursements from the Medical Research Future Fund by $508.5 million over the next four years from 2026–27, and increase annual investment from $650 million to $1 billion from 2030–31.
"Dr Dixon-Douglas' work highlights the importance of investing in clinical trials research," explains Karen Price, CEO of Breast Cancer Trials. "So, it is timely that the Government has recognised the need to bolster investment in this sector."
Dr Dixon-Douglas says, "Triple negative breast cancer is the most aggressive subtype of breast cancer, because it doesn't have any of the receptors that we use to guide treatment. One really big breakthrough in recent years has been adding immunotherapy to chemotherapy, but at the moment we're giving the same treatment to almost all patients."
She explains that cancer is effective at hiding from the immune system, requiring new strategies to help the immune system to recognise the cancer cells.
"The idea is to understand what the patient's immune system is doing before we start any treatment, to identify which factors will help us design the treatment that is going to suit them best," she says. "We know that every patient's tumour is different and also that every patient's immune system is different, so it's about adapting our treatments around that."
Dr Dixon-Douglas and her team then examine the changes that happen in both the immune system and the tumour during treatment, to understand which patients are responding to treatment.
"We can see if the tumour cells are shrinking, or sometimes we see that there is an increased number of immune cells, which indicates that the immune system is being activated against the cancer," she says. "We also have new technology which gives us a very precise understanding of how well the tumour is responding in a non-invasive way. We simply do a blood test, and we can track whether the tumour DNA is decreasing in the blood, which means a lot fewer invasive tests and biopsies for the patient.
"What excites me about this research is it will mean we can cure more patients, with less side effects and less treatment, and the patients will be able to get back to their lives."
Dr Dixon-Douglas expresses gratitude to Breast Cancer Trials for supporting her research.
"It's very difficult as junior researcher to get funding, so this grant provides the protected time to focus on research and improving the treatments we have so that we can use them in the clinic tomorrow," she says.
While increasing funding grants through the MRFF is a step in the right direction, there is more work to be done. Within the highly competitive funding research field, to date 8% of Australian NHMRC medical research grant applications are successful, discouraging many talented researchers from pursuing such careers.[i]
