AusHealth CureCell Award winner, Lachlan Staker – seeking a gene editing therapy for hereditary blindness
Winner: Lachlan Staker
Institution: University of Adelaide
Award: SMART CRC CureCell Award, 2025
Research project: Dual Action Gene Editing Strategy for Treating Dominant Negative or Toxic Gain-of-Function Mutations
Lachlan, congratulations on your award! How did it feel to win?
I had no words – it honestly felt too good to be true!
The award includes a cash prize of $10,000. Has it come at a good time?
Definitely! I’m at the pointy end of my PhD so there are lots of experiments and not much time for anything else. We don’t get paid an awful lot to do research.
I’m planning to use some of the prize to pay for an engagement ring! Don’t worry, my partner knows, so you can make it public!
How do you explain your research to lay people?
I’m designing a therapeutic strategy for some of the hardest genetic diseases to treat. It’s a dual-action therapy that both removes a mutant gene and replaces it with the gene that’s supposed to be there. There have been attempts to do one or the other – either remove the toxic protein or replace it with something that’s beneficial. But the strategy I’ve developed combines them, so we can remove and replace at the same time. Currently, my work is predominantly with genetic blindness, but I’m interested in applying this to many different genetic diseases.
Have the results been what you hoped for so far?
Surprisingly, yes. In human cell experiments, we’ve achieved up to 98% efficiency, which is excellent. Of course, moving into animal models adds complexity, but that’s the next exciting step.
Your research has clear commercial potential. Was that always part of the plan?
Yes — my supervisors and I saw that potential early on. Once the results started coming in, we filed a patent for the technology. Now we’re gathering more data to support it and move the work forward.
What have you learned through doing a PhD in science?
The biggest thing is persistence. You can’t control whether your results are good or bad. But persevering through the highs and lows builds a lot of character and, ultimately, a very good PhD project.
What’s the plan after you finish?
I want to keep working with therapeutic design and gene editing. I think the field is going to become more accessible and more widely accepted by society.
Would you recommend the AusHealth CureCell Awards to other PhD students?
Absolutely. The application process is only about a page of writing, so nothing too crazy! And it can genuinely change your life.
Applications for the next AusHealth CureCell Awards will begin in June 2026.
For more information, visit CureCell.org