CMRI is a world-leading independent research institute dedicated to discovering how to prevent or treat birth defects, children’s cancer and genetic diseases. CMRI actively conducts fundamentally important medical and biological research, and as Australia’s first medical research facility dedicated to children, has been helping to save the lives of children for over 60 years.

Together with Plato and Resolution Capital, the Foundation formed a partnership with CMRI in FY18, funding key upgrades to one of CMRI’s research facilities and purchasing important new research equipment. Funding has continued to be directed towards research and equipment, and in FY25 will support a new research project: targeting cancer cell immortality to improve treatment of aggressive cancers.

CMRI’s research is laying the foundations for development of new therapeutic approaches, which specifically target the molecular pathways that allow cancer cells to replicate without restraint (replicative immortality). This replicative immortality is a fundamental property of most cancers, and is enabled by molecular mechanisms that function to maintain the length of chromosomal-end structures (telomeres). The activation of a telomere maintenance mechanism in cancer cells establishes Achilles heel-like vulnerabilities, that CMRI aims to exploit in the development of new cancer therapies.