Dr Cavan Bennett won this year’s prestigious Burnet Prize, WEHI’s top annual award, for his landmark discovery linking iron regulation to the rare blood cancer polycythaemia vera (PV).

The thing gets me out of bed in the morning is… my two-year-old child! But also trying to explore the knowledge of the unknown and uncover things that no one in the world has previously discovered that could go on to help others.

What I love about haematology is… the vast interaction of all the different blood cells in the body and trying to understand how it goes wrong in disease. By studying this we can uncover treatments for conditions like PV, where the bone marrow produces too many red blood cells, increasing the risk of life-threatening blood clots.

One of the coolest things I’ve been able to do as a scientist is… see my work go from the lab into patients. Our recent discoveries revealed that increasing levels of hepcidin (the body’s master iron regulator) reduces the production of red blood cells in PV patients. This led to clinical trials of a new medicine – Divesiran – in PV patients.

I hope my team’s research will make an impact by… delivering great science and giving hope to patients. Divesiran is in phase 2 trials, led by Silence Therapeutics, a pharmaceutical company we collaborate with. The current, decades old, first line treatment for PV patients is to remove a large volume of blood every few weeks. Instead, in the clinical trials, patients receive a simple injection of Divesiran every six weeks, which is much more pleasant.

One of the biggest challenges I’ve overcome was… adapting to the COVID pandemic. Going from always working in a wet lab, to not being able to come into work was difficult. We could only go into the lab a few days a week, which meant that I had to refocus priorities and continue researching in a completely different way through new technologies and data analyses.

The most inspiring people I’ve met at WEHI are… Dr Jonathan Bernardini and Dr Jason Brouwer. I find it really inspiring that quite early into their postdocs they took a leap of faith to start up their own company, Proxima Bio.

For me, collaboration means… utilising everyone’s expertise to drive a project beyond the scope of my own knowledge and abilities, instead of trying to do everything myself.

When I’m not in the lab, I like to… play, watch or read about sport – I absolutely love sport. I’m currently training for the Melbourne marathon!

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Dr Cavan Bennett is a Senior Research Officer in the Anaemia Research Lab.