Monash research on the agenda at White House meeting
Scientific collaboration was a key topic of discussion when President Barack Obama welcomed Australia’s Prime Minister Tony Abbott to the White House last month.
In a wide ranging talk covering defence and humanitarian issues, the leaders also committed to expanding on scientific research collaborations between the two countries.
During the discussions, a Monash led program on antibiotic resistance was highlighted as one of 6 key examples of successful collaborations between the United States and Australia.
In 2012 and earlier this year the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) awarded two research grants to the Monash Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences (MIPS), the Faculty of Medicine, Nursing and Health Sciences, and the MIMR-PHI Institute, to develop cutting edge treatments for life-threatening infections caused by bacterial ‘superbugs’ and study antibiotic resistance.
Lead researcher Professor Jian Li from MIPS said he was delighted to hear the Monash led projects had been highlighted.
“It was really encouraging to learn that President Obama and Prime Minister Abbott discussed the importance of investing in antibiotic resistance. The work we’re currently doing to develop new drugs and novel combinations is vitally important, with the World Health Organization (WHO) recently highlighting antimicrobial resistance as one of the three greatest threats to human health,” Professor Li said.
“We couldn’t do this work without the significant funding from NIH. So it’s fantastic that our Monash team has been acknowledged in this way."
Both grants, worth almost $10 million in total, are the largest active NIH grants awarded to a university in Australia. A key element of both projects sees Monash researchers working closely with their American counterparts.
The two projects target the global war against antibiotic resistance. The first study funded over five years aims to identify two novel drug candidates against superbugs. Key investigators from Monash are Professor Li, Dr Tony Velkov, Professor Roger Nation, Associate Professor Philip Thompson and Dr Kade Roberts.
The second five-year grant, which was awarded earlier this year, will employ systems pharmacology to identify novel drug combinations against ‘gram-negative’ superbugs. Dr Jiangning Song, Professor Tony Purcell, Dr Tony Velkov, Professor Paul Hertzog and Dr Darren Creek are working alongside Professor Li in the collaborative study.
The funding builds on last year’s G-20 commitment to implement the WHO International Health Regulations, wherein the US and Australia supported the Global Health Security Agenda to accelerate measureable progress towards a world safe and secure from infectious disease threats.