Arrow-Hawkesbury Canoe Classic (HCC) PhD Scholarships

Since its establishment, Arrow has allocated funds for basic research as part of its charter. It has also provided scholarships and grants to support PhD students and research fellows.

The Arrow-HCC Scholarships supplement PhD students who have already been awarded the Australian Postgraduate Award.

The Scholarship is a biomedical research scholarship in the area of leukaemia and bone marrow or stem cell transplantation.

The Scholarship is advertised in all medical and bioscience faculties in NSW, ACT and Victoria and an independent panel of three doctors/academics assesses the applications.

The successful applicants are requested to give due recognition to the Arrow Bone Marrow Transplant Foundation as the provider of the Scholarship and may at times be asked to address both Arrow and its members and the Hawkesbury Canoe Classic Association.

These awards are made possible by the ongoing support of the Hawkesbury Canoe Classic, Arrow's major supporter for the last 13 years.

 

Current Arrow/HCC PhD scholarship recipient: Sewa Rijal

In May this year, Arrow awarded Sewa Rijal the 2010 Arrow/HCC PhD Scholarship. The aim of Sewa's project is to define the role of phosphoinositides phosphatases (PIPs) in the regulation of PI3-kinase function in acute myeloid leukemia (AML). AML cancer cells are driven by genetic errors which block the normal maturation of white blood cells causing abnormally increased rates of cell growth. Sewa will systematically examine the expression levels and function of these PIPs in AML patients to discover the potential cause of abnormally increased PI 3-K activity which affects cell survival and proliferation.

 

Examples of past Scholarship recipients

Dr Adam Bryant

Adam is currently doing research towards a PhD under the supervision of Professor David Ma at the Blood Stem Cell and Cancer Research Unit, St Vincent's Hospital, Sydney. This unit is under the auspices of the University of New South Wales.

Adam's project is entitled "Characterisation of acute myeloid leukaemia by microRNA profiling". miRNA technology offers a new tool to describe AML and possibly provide a superior means of defining prognosis. It is also envisaged that such technology has the potential to identify specific miRNA transcripts contributing to the pathogenesis of AML and provide a target for therapeutic intervention.

Amanda Smith

Amanda is conducting her research project at the University of Newcastle and her research is focused on a cancer causing protein, SET, and its role in acute myeloid leukaemia.

c-KIT is a cancer causing protein that is overexpressed and/or mutated in acute myeloid leukaemia (AML), and numerous other cancers. Imatinib, a new treatment that targets c-KIT, has shown remarkable success in treating c-KIT⁺ cancers, however, some mutations are resistant to imatinib which is emerging as a major clinical problem. Exciting new data from Amanda's honours project has identified that mutant c-KIT causes expression of novel forms of another cancer causing protein, SET. This project will investigate the relationship between c-KIT and SET in leukaemia and test the efficiency of inhibiting SET as a potential new anticancer treatment.

Scholarship applications

Please contact the Arrow-HCC PhD Scholarship committee on 02 8382 2698 or info@arrow.org.au for application information.