University of Melbourne researchers funded to investigate early-onset cancer

A compliation of headshots of Professor Dan Buchanan, Professor Tracy Putoczki and Associate Professor Shuai Li — L-R: Associate Professor Dan Buchanan, Professor Tracy Putoczki and Associate Professor Shuai Li

Researchers from the Faculty of Medicine, Dentistry and Health Sciences (MDHS) have been awarded more than $7 million through a joint funding initiative from NHMRC and Cancer Australia.

The 2025 Cancer Australia Research Initiative (CARI) Targeted Call for Research into early-onset cancer will support work across the faculty and the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research (WEHI). The projects will investigate why younger Australian women develop breast cancer, how bowel cancer risk factors have changed over time, and whether genetic and environmental factors are driving the rise in early-onset pancreatic cancer.

Early onset cancers are typically diagnosed between the ages of 20 and 49. Since 2000, there has been an increase in incidence in several early onset cancers, with an estimated 18,600 new cases diagnosed in Australia alone during 2025, according to Cancer Australia.

Associate Professor Dan Buchanan, Head of the Colorectal Oncogenomics Group and Dame Kate Campbell Principal Research Fellow at the Department of Clinical Pathology and the Collaborative Centre for Genomic Cancer Medicine, a joint initiative between the University of Melbourne and the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre, is leading a project on the causes of early-onset bowel cancer.

He said the number of bowel cancers in Australians under the age of 50 is increasing at an alarming rate, and that modern living could be to blame.

“We think that new exposures, chemicals and bacterial toxins related to modern living are causing the increase in early-onset bowel cancer. By comparing modern day early-onset bowel cancers with early-onset bowels diagnosed decades ago, we aim to identify how the risk factors have changed over time.”

As part of the grant, the University of the Sunshine Coast and Sunshine Coast Hospital and Health Service will establish a living biobank of tissue from early onset colorectal cancer patients to understand the disease’s progression and test potential therapies.

Associate Professor Shuai Li, NHMRC Emerging Leadership Fellow, Dame Kate Campbell Principal Research Fellow and Director of the NHMRC Centre of Research Excellence Genetic Epidemiology Research Alliance, is leading a project to discover new causes of early-onset breast cancer and how multiple factors combine to determine risk.

“We will look at factors like genes and lifestyle habits earlier in life, and how these work together to influence a woman’s risk. Our findings will not only help explain why around four thousand younger Australian women get breast cancer each year, but will also provide insights that could benefit all the approximately 20,000 women diagnosed annually across all age groups.”

Professor Tracy Putoczki from WEHI will lead a project investigating how genetic and environmental factors may interact to drive early-onset pancreatic cancer.