More than $50m awarded to Monash for vital medical research
Research projects to treat dementia, cardiovascular disease, diabetes and improve life support machines with AI are among 27 projects funded by the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) Investigator grants awarded to Monash University researchers.
Federal Minister for Health and Aged Care Mark Butler announced almost $50.47M in funding for Monash researchers across all areas of health and medical research from the Faculties of Medicine, Nursing and Health Sciences (MNHS), Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Science, Science and Engineering, with 63 per cent of awards and 62 per cent of funding allocated to women.
Investigator Grants provide the highest-performing researchers at all career stages with consolidated funding, specifically for research across the four pillars of health and medical research: biomedical, clinical, public health and health services research.
Monash University President and Vice-Chancellor Professor Margaret Gardner AC welcomed the ongoing funding by the Federal Government into research that should deliver significant and improved health outcomes for all Australians.
“These grants to the University’s outstanding researchers recognise their world-leading projects for the benefit of our community. I congratulate all the recipients and thank the government for its support,” Professor Gardner said.
Professor Rebekah Brown, Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Research) said the grants were recognition of the strength of Monash research. “These grants are a real testament to our researchers who are doing incredible work contributing to research excellence and impact. Not only is this an excellent outcome, but it’s wonderful to see that 63 per cent of awards went to females; who are historically underrepresented in funding outcomes.”
Professor Christina Mitchell AO, Dean of Monash Medicine, Nursing and Health Sciences, was awarded $1.5m for undertaking discovery research using models of disease of human development and cancer, to try to unravel the molecular basis of these diseases.
“This is an important scheme, because it funds research teams for 5 years, allowing investigators to pursue new research directions, fostering innovation” Professor Mitchell said.
Professor James Whisstock, Deputy Dean Research, at Monash Medicine, Nursing and Health Sciences, congratulated the recipients. “These grants are incredibly competitive and difficult to win so it is wonderful that so many of our researchers have achieved such significant success and are able to deploy this support to address some of the most pressing health challenges facing society,” he said.
Professor Shaun Gregory received a grant of over $1.3m to investigate how to improve life support machines, known as Extracorporeal Membrane Oxygenation or ECMO. ECMO is used when hearts and lungs fail, and also as a last line of defence for patients with COVID-19, when all other options fail. While ECMO has saved many lives, there are substantial limitations that reduce patient survival and prevent more widespread adoption.
Professor Gregory’s research aims to address those limitations through his world-class team at the Monash University CREATElab where a multidisciplinary team crossing engineering, biological science, medicine and more will develop improved implantation techniques, better clinical training tools, and risk prediction models using big data and artificial intelligence.
“This NHMRC fellowship is career-defining. It will provide an opportunity for me to focus my time and efforts on delivering improved solutions for the sickest of patients. Such a prestigious fellowship also elevates my national and international reputation as a researcher, thus further building my research career and giving me the time to build the careers of the next generation of budding biomedical engineers,” said Professor Gregory.
The projects funded include:
Improving access to non-pharmacological treatment in chronic respiratory disease | Dr Narelle Cox |
Targeting the gut microbiota to treat cardiovascular disease | Associate Professor Francine Marques |
Genetic basis for skeletal muscle formation and regeneration in development and disease | Professor Peter Currie |
Preventing major morbidity in women, a possible role for testosterone | Professor Susan Davis |
Investigations into phage biology directed at therapies for antimicrobial resistant (AMR) infections | Professor Trevor Lithgow |
Improving critically ill patient outcomes through randomised trials and registries in intensive care | Dr David J. (Jamie) Cooper |
Fair resource allocation decisions in old age – enhancing the quality-adjusted life year (QALY) framework | Dr Lidia Engel |
Targeted neuroprotective treatments for fetal and neonatal brain injury | Associate Professor Suzanne Miller |
Targeted regulatory T cells to treat autoimmune diseases | Dr Joshua Ooi |
More accurate disease assessment and improved clinical decision-making for patients with urothelial cancers | Professor Ian Davis |
Optimising novel therapies to improve lymphoma patient outcomes | Associate Professor Eliza Hawkes |
Phosphoinositide signalling in disease | Professor Christina Mitchell |
Improving Labour Induction | Dr Wentao Li |
Transforming the landscape of dementia prevention | Associate Professor Joanne Ryan |
Fallopian tube on-a-chip for understanding human reproduction | Dr Reza Nosrati |
Improving strategies to combat infectious health threats in vulnerable populations | Dr Sarah McGuinness |
Determinants of Effective T cell Activation | Professor Nicole La Gruta |
Implementation research: Delivering impact at the health-food retail interface for healthy food environments, with Indigenous communities | Associate Professor Julie Brimblecombe |
antigen discovery across immunity | Professor Anthony Purcell |
Delivering Precision Medicine to Population Disease Prevention | Professor Melissa Southey |
Identifying and responding to prescription opioid-related risks | Louisa Picco |
Optimising Outpatient Parenteral Antimicrobial Therapy | Associate Professor Benjamin Rogers |
Smartphone sensors: Predicting changes in mental health and delivering "just in time" interventions | Dr Gemma Sharp |
A multidisciplinary approach to reducing complications with extracorporeal membrane oxygenation | Professor Shaun Gregory |
Harnessing novel lymph-resident targets and lymph-specific therapeutics to fight inflammation | Enyuan Cao |
Integration of Pre-hospital and Hospital based | Associate Professor Dion Stub |
Reducing the burden of diabetic complications | Professor Karin Jandeleit-Dahm |
For a full list of recipients, please visit: https://www.nhmrc.gov.au
About Monash University
Monash University is Australia’s largest university with more than 80,000 students. In the 60 years since its foundation, it has developed a reputation for world-leading high-impact research, quality teaching, and inspiring innovation.
With four campuses in Australia and a presence in Malaysia, China, India, Indonesia and Italy, it is one of the most internationalised Australian universities.
As a leading international medical research university with the largest medical faculty in Australia and integration with leading Australian teaching hospitals, we consistently rank in the top 50 universities worldwide for clinical, pre-clinical and health sciences.
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