Primary brain cancer affects almost 2000 Australians every year and is sadly incurable.

In this episode we’ll hear about how neuroscience might improve outcomes for people with brain cancer.

Our guests are Professor Lucy Palmer, head of The Florey’s Neural Network Group. Lucy’s team works with live brain tissue samples donated by generous cancer patients, to better understand the relationship between tumours and the brain.

We’ll also hear from Professor Kate Drummond, Director of Neurosurgery at The Royal Melbourne Hospital, who sees brain cancer every day and is acutely aware of what a research breakthrough would mean to patients and the community.

And we’ll meet Janet Micaleff, a woman who has had reoccurring brain tumours for 40 years but somehow takes it all in her stride. Janet has become a voice for a community of people with similar lived experience.

This is the final episode in Season 1. We hope you’ve enjoyed listening, and we look forward to bringing you Season 2 later in the year.

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We live in a world of plastic. Millions upon millions of tons are produced every year, meaning plastics are all around us - and it turns out – within us too. Around 16,000 chemicals are believed to involved in plastics in some form, and many of these chemicals make their way into our bodies.

How do these human-made substances affect the brain?

In this episode, we’ll hear about ways plastics are disrupting biological processes connected to brain function and development.

Our guests are Florey neuro-epidemiologist, Professor Anne-Louise Ponsonby who is leading work to check the impact of plastics on children’s brains, and paediatrician Dr Christos Symeonides, an advocate with the Minderoo Foundation for stronger global regulation of plastic.

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Motor neurone disease was first described in the 1800s, but it’s only in the last two decades that researchers have been able to make serious inroads into understanding this fatal neurodegenerative disease.

Treatments remain very limited for patients and a cure is still some way off – but why is MND so challenging for patients, for their doctors and for researchers? Is there hope on the horizon?

In this episode, we tackle just that. Joining us is neurologist and Florey researcher, Dr Thanuja Dharmadasa, leader of The Florey’s MND research group, Professor Brad Turner, and Emma Vulin who was diagnosed with MND last year.

Emma is a Member of the Victorian Parliament and, despite her diagnosis, she continues to serve her electorate and attend to her official duties while juggling medical appointments and life as a mother of two.

Together with our host Dr Shane Huntington, our guests discuss the potential for personalised MND treatments and learn about world-first drug screening technology and MRI technology now in use at The Florey.

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What would you like our neuroscientists to talk about? Email us at info@florey.edu.au