Monash leads country in medical funding

Medical research

The National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) last week announced more than $640 million in medical research funding across 12 schemes.

Monash led the country in successful project grants, attracting $68 million across 87 projects, and was ranked number one overall with a total of 142 projects, program, fellowships and equipment grants totaling more than $100 million for 2017.

Congratulations to the 23 Monash Biomedicine Discovery Institute (BDI) researchers who contributed to this amazing result, securing 27 Project Grants worth close to $18.5 million, bringing the total NHMRC and ARC funding secured by the BDI to more than $29 million for the year.

This is in addition to the $3.8 million secured by the six BDI researchers who were successful in their NHMRC Fellowship applications announced in October, and the $4.8 million secured by 11 researchers in the ARC funding announced in November. Combining this with the two ARC Future Fellows announced in June, this puts Monash BDI in poll position to address the major medical health challenges of today.

Monash Provost and Senior Vice-President, Professor Marc Parlange said the record breaking success at Monash in attracting grant funding was a testament to the talent and dedication of the University’s researchers and faculty leaders.

“It is the innovations of our researchers that result in major breakthroughs and better health outcomes that become part of our daily lives,” Professor Parlange said.

Professor John Carroll, Director of the Monash BDI, said: “It has been a great year for Monash in both ARC and NHMRC funding and I particularly want to congratulate all those in the institute who were successful this year. The range of projects which received funding beautifully showcases the diversity of world-class research we undertake here.”

Research into prostate, colon and gastric cancers, bariatric surgery, chronic pain, regulating the immune system, and antibiotic resistance were among the projects recognised at Monash. The full list of NHMRC Project Grant recipients is available here.

Congratulations to the 23 Monash BDI researchers who, between them, secured 27 NHMRC Project Grants:

  • Professor Marie-Isabel Aguilar: Mechanism of bacterial membrane resistance to antimicrobial peptides;
  • Dr Minna-Liisa Anko: Tapping the power of pluripotency: the role of HMGA1 protein in stem cell renewal and cell fate transition;
  • Professor John Carroll: Building the meiotic spindle: microtubule severing is necessary for fertility;
  • Dr Bradley Edwards: Predicting the successful resolution of obstructive sleep apnoea following weight-loss surgery;
  • Dr Andrew Ellisdon: Structural characterisation of the co-inhibitory complex formed by the tumour suppressor PTEN and the metastatic factor PREX2;
  • Dr Luc Furic: Codon bias: a hidden layer of translational regulation by estrogens
  • Dr Wendy Imlach, who received two grants: Identifying novel molecular targets for treating chronic pain, and Decoding dysfunctional spinal cord circuitry in chronic pain;
  • Dr Terry Kwok-Schuelein: Understanding how the Helicobacter pylori pilin protein CagL promotes gastric cancer;
  • Associate Professor Mireille Lahoud: The regulatory role of Clec12A in antigen presentation and inflammatory disease;
  • Professor Jian Li: Integrative systems pharmacology, neutron reflectometry and molecular dynamics approaches to unravelling the interaction between polymyxins and bacterial membranes;
  • Dr Sarah Lockie: Defining reciprocal neural circuits that regulate appetite and memory;
  • Professor Dena Lyras: Anti-sporulation strategies for Clostridium difficile infections;
  • Dr Christian Nefzger: Generation of human intestinal stem cells by direct reprogramming;
  • Professor Brian Oldfield, who received two grants: Central neural circuits subserving nutrient – activated thermogenesis – the basis of post prandial energy expenditure, and Mechanisms underlying the efficacy of bariatric surgery – insights from rat models of sleeve gastrectomy and the adjustable gastric band;
  • Professor Anton Peleg, who received two grants: Antibiotic resistance and host immune evasion in Staphylococcus aureus, and Bacterial and host drivers of fulminant community-acquired Acinetobacter baumannii infection;
  • Professor Gail Risbridger: A novel approach to targeting castrate-resistant prostate cancer;
  • Associate Professor Joseph Rosenbluh: Targeted therapy in APC deleted colon cancers;
  • Dr Yogitha Srikhanta: Understanding the impact of epigenetic gene regulation on Helicobacter pylori persistence and pathogenesis;
  • Associate Professor Martin Stone: who received two grants: Discovery and characterisation of tick evasins – inhibitors of chemokine-mediated inflammation, and Mechanisms of ligand-selective signalling by chemokine receptors;
  • Dr David Stroud: Systems approaches to understanding the assembly of mitochondrial machines;
  • Dr Renea Taylor: Novel targeting of therapy-resistant prostate cancer cells;
  • Associate Professor Ana Traven: An investigation into chromatin dynamics in host-pathogen interactions and fungal virulence;
  • Professor Robert Widdop: Pharmacological inhibition of IRAP as a novel antifibrotic strategy.