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RECENT NEWS & UPDATES

2024 Impact Report PDF

To view the 2024 impact report, click on the button below.

IMPACT REPORT

Wednesday 6th March 2024 Lab Tour

On Wednesday 6th March 2024, we were invited to attend a meeting and lab tour with Dr Jagdev Singh, alongside our partners CURE4CF.

Dr Singh was kind enough to give us an update on the phage therapy trial that is currently occurring at The Children’s Hospital at Westmead. We are pleased to announce Dr Sing presented to us his notes and findings on two separate patients with cystic fibrosis and we are proud to announce the trial so far has been a success with improvements in areas affected by cystic fibrosis.

This trial would have not been made possible without the support from our amazing donors. This clinical trial is the first major step both locally and internationally. Our hope is to make this therapy readily available to everyone who requires it.

A special thank you to Stephanie from The Westmead Institute for Medical Research who is also driving the force inside the labs.

Grateful to be apart of life changing moments.

MAJOR ANNOUNCEMENT!

Team Simon donate $250,000 to support cure focused research!

The Team Simon Foundation have generously donated $250,000 to CURE4CF. This gift will support the 2023 Holckner Family CF Impact Grant, which is currently underway, ad we look forward to updating you on its progress very soon.

CURE4CF CEO Suzy Dimaline says, “On behalf of our CF Army I’d like to extend my heartfelt thanks to the Bazouni family for taking the necessary action to pave a future free from Cystic Fibrosis. Their partnership and unbelievable efforts make us that much stronger and will help bring us closer to a cure!”

EXCITING NEWS!

Featured on the Sunday Project 17.09.2023

Thanks to the support of our community, generous sponsors and donors. The Team Simon Foundation in 2022 was able to fund a 3 year PhD in Phage Therapy in children with Cystic Fibrosis. We are excited to announce that Dr Jagdev Singh, Paediatric Respiratory and Sleep Consultant at the Children’s Hospital at Westmead, is leading the first clinical trial investigating the use of phage therapy to treat chronic bacterial infection in children with Cystic Fibrosis.

The clinical trial is the first major step, both locally and internationally. Meet 12 year old Abby, one of the first patients to be treated using phage therapy. Grateful to be apart of life changing moments.

View the Media release phage therapy PDF below.

Media Release I Phage Therapy 18.09.2023

Cystic Fibrosis is a lifelong disease that affects one in 2,500 people. It not only affects the lungs but also the digestive system, liver and the body’s ability to regulate sugar levels. Significant progress has been made in the well-being of people living with this disease over the past 20 years. The majority of those with CF are now expected to live longer, fuller and healthier lives.

However, there is still a group of people with CF who remain sick. It is estimated that one in four children with CF suffer from difficult to treat lung infections. The most common lung infection in these children is caused by a bacterium called Pseudomonas aeruginosa. This bacterium ca lead to an increased need for prolonged and repeated hospital admissions, increased antibiotic use and higher chances of irreversible lung damage. Furthermore, this bacterium has an innate capability of becoming resistant to most, if not all available antibiotics. By the age of 16, one in ten teenagers infected by this organism will be carrying this bacterium that is resistant to antibiotics. Once this happens, the changes of rapid deterioration and death are a staggering eight times higher than a child with CF who has not been infected by this bacterium. What is worse is that potential life prolonging treatment such as lung transplantation becomes extremely difficult once this infection has set in.

The CF clinic at the Children’s Hospital Westmead, with the support of the Team Simon Foundation, is helping to find a solution to this difficult and pressing problem. Through this collaboration, we have set up the world’s first clinical trial to treat this infection with bacteriophage therapy in children with CF. The trial will use a very specific virus called bacteriophage. These viruses, which exist in the environment, will be carefully selected, and vigorously tested, before being administered in children.

Although bacteriophages have existed in the environment for billions of years, finding the right bacteriophage that will work on the in individual strain of bacteria (there are many strains of Pseudomonas, and different children may have different strains of the same bacterium) is a time consuming and complex process. Dr. Jadgev Singh, through his collaborative work at the University of Melbourne, managed to find three such phages over two weeks of rigorous searching. Through our collaborations, we have access to over 600 bacteriophages that we will use in our arsenal to find the precise match for each individual child.

As this is the world’s first clinical trial for bacteriophage therapy in children, the process of setting up the study has been long and arduous. It has required multiple consultations with experts to ensure safety and feasibility. Nonetheless we are well placed. The CF clinic and team at the Children’s Hospital at Westmead have a strong track record of extensive experience in caring for large numbers of children with CF, as well as conducting numerous clinical trials focused on cutting edge treatments and testing for children with CF. This vast experience and expertise have undoubtedly played a significant role in driving this study forward.

Thankfully, with the collaboration and support of CF families like the Bazouni family, the study has been approved by ethics and governance committees. The study protocol has been accepted for publication in the esteemed, peer reviewed, international scientific journal – The British Medical Jounral. More Importantly, we are only a few months away from using this treatment on our first patient.

This progress has increased interest from other groups performing cutting edge research in CF. For instance, a group that studies the lung cells of children with CF and the response of these cells towards medications is currently collaborating with out team to look closer into the interaction between bacteriophages and the CF cell function. This may help us to improve on this treatment over time and perhaps even make it more accessible. Our team anticipates that after the protocol publication in the British Medical Journal, and commencement of the trial, there will be more research scientists and clinicians seeking further collaborations.

In addition to this exciting work, the Team Simon Foundation PhD scholarship has allowed Dr. Singh to contribute to the larger CF community. He has setup a new CF clinic, education modules for teenagers with CF to help them understand their condition (CF community Care NSW) and contributed to the writing of important guidelines (Cystic Fibrosis Standards of Care) to improve CF care throughout Australia. It is impressive and inspiring work that will make a real difference in the lives of CF children and their families.

None of this would have been possible without the generosity and foresight of the Team Simon Foundation and their supporters.

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Team Simon Foundation for Cystic Fibrosis Ltd

A.B.N 86 626 007 458

Registered as a charity with Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission (ACNC)