The Ballarat Cancer Research Centre (BCRC) is a regionally based cancer research facility in Australia. They have a cancer research project going on called The Chemosensitivity Testing Project to understand the link between unique disease and unique treatment protocols by individualizing a patient's treatment to determine better treatment approaches and better outcomes.
In 2005, one of their clinicians travelled to Los Angeles, CA to undertake chemosensitivity testing on a sample of his tumor cells. This lead to their interest in the area of using biochemical chemosensitivity assays instead of genetic markers to try and determine the specific susceptibility of cancers to chemotherapy.
They met with Dr. Ian Cree from the Translational Oncology Research Centre in Portsmouth, UK and spent time with Cree's group to learn the methodology and bring back the expertise to the BCRC and devised a clinical trial to test the efficacy of this method in advanced lung cancer patients.
Dr. Ian Cree performed the very first prospective, randomized clinical trial of physician's choice chemotherapy versus ATP assay-directed chemotherapy in non-surgically debulked, platinum-resistant ovarian cancer and presented it at the 2005 ASCO meeting. The ATP is one of the "cell-death" assays.
At BCRC, they want to help cancer patients who don't fit the current "one-size-fits-all" cancer treatment approach. They already know this approach is not suitable for all those who will face a cancer diagnosis.
http://www.bcrc.org.au/index.php
It looks like the Ballarat Cancer Research Centre has changed their name to Fiona Elsey Cancer Research Institute, as identified by their website url address.
Personalized Cancer Treatments Abroad
http://cancerfocus.org/forum/showthread.php?t=3948