University of Melbourne projects receive $42 million in NHMRC Ideas Grant funding to address cancer, chronic and infectious diseases
Thirty-six University of Melbourne researchers have had their projects funded through the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) Ideas Grants scheme in 2024, with over $42 million funding University of Melbourne research.
“Cancer, Alzheimer’s Disease, liver disease, type 2 diabetes and endometriosis are complex, often chronic diseases affecting our community. We need great ideas to prevent, treat and even cure them, so I’m delighted to see so many projects from our departments and schools and within our partner organisations, supported through the NHMRC Ideas Grant scheme. This research will have a real impact on the health and wellbeing of the communities we serve.” said Professor Jane Gunn AO, Dean of the Faculty of Medicine, Dentistry and Health Sciences.
Congratulations to:
The Sir Peter MacCallum Department of Oncology
- Dr Annette Lim, Defining immunotherapy response and resistance mechanisms in cutaneous squamous cell carcinoma.
- Associate Professor, Kylie, Gorringe, Lineage tracing to identify ovarian cancer cells of origin
- Associate Professor, Heather, Thorne, Revealing the remaining genetic cause of breast and ovarian cancer in multi-case families. What we are missing matters,
- Dr, Yih-Chih Chan, Investigating novel determinants of response to CAR T-cell therapy for large B-cell lymphoma
- Associate Professor, Andrew, Cox, Identification of novel regulators in cancer-associated cachexia
- Associate Professor, Louise, Cheng, Organ competition: how do tumours grow at the expense of other tissues in cancer cachexia?
- Professor Riccardo Dolcetti, Off-the-shelf circular mRNA vaccine exploiting non-conventional tumour antigens to improve immunotherapy of mismatch repair-proficient colorectal cancer
- Dr Aparna Rao, Identifying novel metabolic biomarkers and therapeutic targets in patients with melanoma
- Dr Emily Gruber, Epigenetic targeting of multiple myeloma
- Associate Professor Vihandha Wickramasinghe, Mechanisms underlying the pathology of spliceosomal mutations in myelodysplastic syndromes and cancer
- Dr Isabelle Munoz, Developing novel CAR T cells with enhanced metabolic performance for solid tumour treatment
Florey Department of Neuroscience and Mental Health
- Associate Professor, Mohammed, Hossain, Targeting the G protein-coupled peptide receptor RXFP4 to treat constipation
- Professor Robin McAllen, A small brain region that regulates host defences
- Dr Niamh Moriarty, Promoting survival and functional integration of human neural grafts for the treatment of Parkinson's Disease
Biochemistry & Pharmacology
- Dr Elena Schneider-Futschik, Exposure to Cystic Fibrosis Modulators During Pregnancy to Mitigate Pathology Development in Offspring
- Dr Carl White, Chemokines as novel nucleic acid sensors: a new function in innate immunity
- Professor Justine, Mintern, Enhancing mRNA vaccines by exploiting pathways of antigen presentation
Microbiology & Immunology
- Professor Christopher McDevitt, Harnessing structural insights into bacterial zinc efflux for new therapeutics
- Dr Maximilien Evrard, Harnessing tissue-resident memory T cell immunity in gastrointestinal diseases
- Professor Jason, Mackenzie, Host factors contributing to norovirus replication and transmission
- Dr Sacha Pidot, Building better bacteriophage to target intractable mycobacterial infections
- Dr Glen Carter, Rational design of live bacterial therapeutics to combat multidrug resistant organisms
- Dr Annabell Bachem, Enhancing CD8+ T cell immunity using microbiota-derived short chain fatty acids
- Dr, Brad, Gilbertson, Assessing the Pandemic Threat of Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza A Viruses
- Dr Vincent Corbin, Viral riboswitch structures as therapeutic targets
- Dr Sapna Devi, Defining neural regulation of the tumour immune ecosystem
- Dr Lynette Beattie, T Cell Synergy for Malaria killing
Anatomy & Physiology
- Professor Matthew Watt, Elastin microfibril interfacer 1: a new target for MASH-associated hepatic fibrosis
- Dr Magdalene Katharina, Montgomery, Targeting Chromosome 1 open reading frame 35 (C1orf35) for the treatment of advanced metabolic liver disease
- Associate Professor, Garron, Dodd, Turbocharging Treatments for Type-2 Diabetes
Obstetrics and Gynaecology:
- Dr Jacqueline Donoghue, Molecular Mechanisms of Abnormal Uterine Bleeding
- Professor Susan Walker, Novel methods to identify women at risk of preeclampsia late in pregnancy
- Professor Evdokia, Dimitriadis, A new way to see endometrial receptivity defects and implantation failure
Medicine - Austin Health
- Dr Chandana Herath, Novel liver-targeted therapy in liver cancer
Melbourne Dental School
- Associate Professor Catherine Butler, Defining how pathogenic bacterial membrane vesicles impact neurodegenerative processes in Alzheimer's disease
Faculty of Engineering and Information Technology
- Associate Professor Hamish Meffin, Next-generation encoding of electrical stimulation for sensory cortical prostheses, Biomedical Engineering.