Beneficiaries

MAJOR BENEFICIARY

    and Dr Matt Dun

Dr Matt Dun is a National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) Emerging Leadership Fellow (2020-2024) and a Defeat DIPG Chadtough New Investigator (2020-2021). He is currently Senior Lecturer at the University of Newcastle, Australia. His position and research has been supported by state and/or national funding bodies continuously since 2012, as well as supplemented by philanthropic and industry contributors throughout.

Decorated by more than 20 national and international awards, Matt achieved his PhD at The University of Newcastle and Hunter Medical Research Institute by publication in 2012. Soon after, he refocused his research from reproductive cell biology and biochemistry, to the fields of medical biochemistry, cancer cell biology and his now specialty - proteomics and intermolecular interactions.

Although initially focused on blood cancers, Matt’s research faced an unexpected shift in focus in 2018, when his then 2-year-old daughter Josephine, was diagnosed with Grade IV diffuse intrinsic pontine glioma (DIPG). Also known as diffuse midline glioma (DMG), Matt was struck by the lack of scientific knowledge regarding the pathophysiology of the disease, and by the stark absence of treatments for DIPG patients - so he set about creating his own program of DIPG research. Guided by those at the forefront of worldwide DIPG research (Monje, Nazarian, Mueller), and self-funded (thanks to the establishment of his own charity ‘RUN DIPG’), Matt’s endeavours have led to the first, high-resolution, quantitative proteomic analysis of the disease.

75%of the funds raised by the Newcastle to Dungog  Charity Bikeride will go through HMRI, to  Dr Matt Dun to assist in his research into the Childhood Brainstem Cancer DIPG,. With no treatment options currently available, except palliative radiotherapy, he is working towards the timely and innovative development of anti-DIPG/DMG therapies, and, improvement to current standard-of-care management..

Find out more about this remarkable Researcher on the following Websites:-

https://www.newcastle.edu.au/profile/matt-dun

https://rundipg.org/ - (This is a charity that he setup to help with funding research.)

OTHER BENEFICIARIES

Various local Charities .