University of Melbourne researchers celebrated at 2023 NHMRC Research Excellence Awards

The National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) has recognised innovative research projects led by Professor Sharon Lewin AO and Professor Jane Pirkis at the 2023 NHMRC Research Excellence Awards.

Held annually, the NHMRC Research Excellence Awards celebrate top-ranked individual and team applicants across the NHMRC’s competitive grant schemes for the previous year.

Professor Sharon Lewin AO, Director of the Doherty Institute, was awarded the Elizabeth Blackburn Investigator Grant Award in Clinical Medicine and Science (Leadership) for her project ‘Novel interventions to treat and cure acute and chronic viral infections’. The primary aim of her project is to combine cutting-edge techniques, such as gene editing, mRNA technology and immunotherapy to target long-lived infected cells that persist in people undergoing antiviral treatment for HIV and to develop novel treatments for acute respiratory infections such as SARS-CoV-2.

Professor Jane Pirkis, Director of the Centre for Mental Health and Community Wellbeing, was awarded the prestigious NHMRC Elizabeth Blackburn Investigator Grant Award in Public Health (Leadership) for her project strengthening the evidence base for suicide prevention. Her project is using cluster randomised controlled trials, data linkage studies, and interrupted time series studies to more rigorously evaluate the effectiveness of suicide prevention measures.

Professor Jane Gunn AO, Dean of the Faculty of Medicine, Dentistry and Health Sciences, congratulated both researchers on their outstanding achievements. “These awards represent recognition at the highest level, and I’d like to congratulate and thank Professor Lewin and Professor Pirkis for their outstanding and sustained leadership in addressing the complex health challenges we face today,” she said.

More information about the awards and a full list of recipients is available on the NHMRC website.