Pieter grew up in small town in Canada and recently moved to Perth, Australia. As with most kids growing up in the 70’s and 80’s he was outside of the house all day and only really came home to eat. This feeling has stayed with him his whole life, enjoying an active outdoor lifestyle. This also drives his work where he sees those stricken by cancer lose this luxury. His goal is to enhance the quality of life for those diagnosed with cancer so that they enjoy more of those moments.

PI3K inhibitors target an important group of molecules that many breast cancer cells (and other types of cancer too) need to grow and survive.

Professor Eichhorn and his team have found important early evidence of molecular changes that could help to explain why some patients respond well to treatment with PI3K inhibitors, while others do not. They will now use a combination of innovative techniques to explore this in more detail.

First, the team will investigate the molecular processes that help cancer cells to ‘ignore’ PI3K inhibitor treatment and continue to grow. Then, they will work to identify possible new ways to ‘short circuit’ this resistance, so that the cancer cells cannot survive treatment.

As part of this work, they will use tiny ‘organoids’ of breast cancer (small cell models of the disease), developed from patients who had treatment resistance to PI3K inhibitors. This will help the researchers determine the success of their results, and hopefully help to identify new ways of enhancing the effectiveness of PI3K inhibitors for patients.