Khan a certified star on the rise

The Kids’ Cancer Project’s Col Reynolds Fellow, Dr Aaminah Khan, has been nominated for the Association of Australian Medical Research Institutes’ (AAMRI) Rising Star award for 2025, showcasing Australia’s best and brightest early-career researchers.

Based at the Children’s Cancer Institute, Dr Khan’s research focuses on medulloblastoma, a brain cancer that begins in the cerebellum, as well as diffuse midline glioma (DMG), another brain tumour. Medulloblastoma’s most aggressive subtype has a survival rate of less than 50%, while DMG is currently regarded as incurable.

Dr Khan is aiming to target polyamine pathway with a combination of two drugs that will inhibit a cancer cell’s ability to multiply and grow. If successful, Dr Khan will have created a new, highly effective treatment that spares healthy cells, offering improved outcomes for children with medulloblastoma.

In just four years – supported by The Kids’ Cancer Project – Dr Khan has managed to progress her project to the point of an international clinical trial scheduled to take place in the coming months.

The Rising Star Award seeks to celebrate the achievements of early and mid-career researchers. Scientists in many sectors, from cancers to infectious diseases and mental health, have been nominated alongside Dr Khan.

"The whole team at The Kids’ Cancer Project is proud of Aaminah and the work she is contributing to paediatric brain cancer research. It’s wonderful to see her efforts being recognised at this stage of her career,” says The Kids’ Cancer Project Head of Research, Dr Justine Stehn.

“While research is certainly a long game, the work of Aaminah speaks to both her ingenuity and determination to have progressed her research to clinical trial within four years. We hope she manages to take the Rising Star Award home, but to us she is already a genuine superstar.”

Dr Khan says she is inspired every day by those who she meets and aims to help. 

"I meet parents who have gone through such a horrible ordeal, and yet they still take something from that experience. They fundraise, they raise awareness, and the reason they do all of this is so that the next child doesn’t have to go through something like this,” she says.

"I think if they can show such resilience then we as a global community, whether fundraisers or researchers or anyone, can get involved and build a part of that story.

"It’s always great being involved with The Kids’ Cancer Project. I very proudly say that I’m a Col Reynolds Fellow now. The opportunities are amazing, the people are great, and they’re willing to collaborate. It’s really amazing to be a part of this story."

For more information on the AAMRI’s Rising Star Award, click here.