Optimising Intervention Strategies To Reduce The Burden Of Group A Streptococcus In Aboriginal Communities
Funder
National Health and Medical Research Council
Funding Amount
$856,896.00
Summary
Skin sores are highly prevalent in remote Australian Indigenous communities and can lead to invasive infections and rheumatic heart disease. We will develop mathematical models to understand the transmission of skin sores, allowing us to define the optimal extent (household, community, region), timing and triggers for interventions to interrupt transmission. This will guide public health policy in reducing the prevalence of skin sores and scabies, and their accompanying disease burden.
Group A Streptococcal Human Challenge Study: Accelerating Vaccine Development
Funder
National Health and Medical Research Council
Funding Amount
$2,018,741.00
Summary
Infection with group A streptococcus (GAS) is a major cause of morbidity and mortality worldwide, including in the Aboriginal population of Australia. Concerted efforts for vaccine development have been hampered by the absence of a suitable animal model. To address this critical knowledge gap we propose to develop a controlled human infection model of GAS infection. This model will provide a direct pathway for the future appraisal of novel GAS vaccines.
The END RHD CRE: Developing An Endgame For Rheumatic Heart Disease In Australia
Funder
National Health and Medical Research Council
Funding Amount
$2,601,147.00
Summary
Rheumatic heart disease (RHD) is caused by an abnormal immune reaction to some bacterial infections. Although RHD is rare in developed countries, Indigenous Australians still live with the burden of RHD. The END RHD CRE will explore risk factors for RHD, prevention with antibiotics, management of RHD and the potential for vaccine development. Individuals and communities experiencing RHD are integral partners to this work. The CRE will establish a strategy for ending RHD in Australia.
New Boron and Gadolinium Agents for Neutron Capture Therapy. The development of new drugs and treatments for cancer is highly important for improved health outcomes and the well-being of the community. This research has the potential to result in the development of new anticancer pharmaceuticals that will dramatically expand the clinical efficacy of a promising treatment for highly aggressive tumours. The innovative nature of this research will also contribute to Australia's science knowledge ....New Boron and Gadolinium Agents for Neutron Capture Therapy. The development of new drugs and treatments for cancer is highly important for improved health outcomes and the well-being of the community. This research has the potential to result in the development of new anticancer pharmaceuticals that will dramatically expand the clinical efficacy of a promising treatment for highly aggressive tumours. The innovative nature of this research will also contribute to Australia's science knowledge base, a key element in its future economic prosperity, and it will provide excellent training of young researchers for employment in the rapidly expanding field of drug design and development.Read moreRead less
Can Skin Infection With Group A Streptococcus Cause Acute Rheumatic Fever?
Funder
National Health and Medical Research Council
Funding Amount
$459,450.00
Summary
It is traditionally taught that the cause of acute rheumatic fever (ARF) is always infection of the throat with the bacterium group A streptococcus (GAS). However, in Aboriginal communities of the Top End of the Northern Territory the incidence of ARF is the highest reported in the world, yet GAS is uncommonly isolated from the throat. There is further information to suggest that GAS skin sores may underlie many cases of ARF. If this were proven, it would completely alter the traditional view of ....It is traditionally taught that the cause of acute rheumatic fever (ARF) is always infection of the throat with the bacterium group A streptococcus (GAS). However, in Aboriginal communities of the Top End of the Northern Territory the incidence of ARF is the highest reported in the world, yet GAS is uncommonly isolated from the throat. There is further information to suggest that GAS skin sores may underlie many cases of ARF. If this were proven, it would completely alter the traditional view of the cause of ARF, and have important implications for prevention of ARF around the world. Presently, these approaches focus on diagnosing and treating sore throat, but no country has proven that such a program can be successful in substantially reducing new cases of ARF. If it was known that skin infection could lead to ARF, then countries (including Australia) could emphasise the importance of skin health programs. A further benefit of this knowledge would be to influence GAS vaccine development, which presently is largely focused on the prevention of sore throat. A different possibility has recently been raised - that the cause of ARF may not always be GAS, but instead that the related bacteria GCS and GGS may have the potential to cause this disease. Proof of this hypothesis would even more dramatically alter our understanding of disease causation, prevention, and vaccine development. We propose to determine the cause of ARF in Aboriginal communities by regularly swabbing families of people with a history of ARF, and using genetic fingerprinting of the bacteria from the skin and throat swabs. When cases of ARF occur, we will be able to determine the site and type of infection that precipitated the attack. We will conduct a related study in more communities, in which we will swab family members of people with ARF and of control families (without ARF) to determine the bacteria most commonly isolated from ARF families.Read moreRead less
Graded semisimple deformations. Recent advances in representation theory have revealed beautiful new structures in the classical representation theory of the symmetric groups and Hecke algebras. These discoveries have provided us with new algebras, the cyclotomic KLR algebras, that encode deep properties of fundamental objects in algebraic combinatorics and geometric representation theory. The cyclotomic quiver Hecke algebras are central to several open problems in mathematics but they are still ....Graded semisimple deformations. Recent advances in representation theory have revealed beautiful new structures in the classical representation theory of the symmetric groups and Hecke algebras. These discoveries have provided us with new algebras, the cyclotomic KLR algebras, that encode deep properties of fundamental objects in algebraic combinatorics and geometric representation theory. The cyclotomic quiver Hecke algebras are central to several open problems in mathematics but they are still poorly understood, with even basic properties like their dimensions being unknown. This project will establish a new framework for studying these algebras that will remove the current obstacles in this field and alllow us to prove substantial new results that advance the theory.Read moreRead less
Discovery Early Career Researcher Award - Grant ID: DE210100180
Funder
Australian Research Council
Funding Amount
$400,475.00
Summary
Effective classification of closed vertex-transitive groups acting on trees. Symmetry is a fundamental organising principle in mathematics and human endeavour. This project aims to advance our knowledge of zero-dimensional symmetry, a frontier in symmetry research. In the longer term, advancements in fundamental knowledge in this area have the potential to inform the usage and development of digital structures in more practical contexts, such as data networks and information processing. The proj ....Effective classification of closed vertex-transitive groups acting on trees. Symmetry is a fundamental organising principle in mathematics and human endeavour. This project aims to advance our knowledge of zero-dimensional symmetry, a frontier in symmetry research. In the longer term, advancements in fundamental knowledge in this area have the potential to inform the usage and development of digital structures in more practical contexts, such as data networks and information processing. The project is expected to develop new tools of both theoretical and computational nature that will accelerate ongoing research across the field and enable new approaches. This will cement Australia's position at the forefront of research in symmetry and its use in the digital age.Read moreRead less
Discovery Early Career Researcher Award - Grant ID: DE150100308
Funder
Australian Research Council
Funding Amount
$283,536.00
Summary
Branching and self-similarity in group actions. This project aims to develop the theory of groups of symmetries that have self-similarity (part of the object has the same structure as the whole) and branching (transformations may be performed on parts of the object independently of one another while preserving the overall structure). The focus will be on a class of topological groups in which these properties frequently occur, building on methods recently developed and their actions on trees and ....Branching and self-similarity in group actions. This project aims to develop the theory of groups of symmetries that have self-similarity (part of the object has the same structure as the whole) and branching (transformations may be performed on parts of the object independently of one another while preserving the overall structure). The focus will be on a class of topological groups in which these properties frequently occur, building on methods recently developed and their actions on trees and on the Cantor set. The project aims to significantly advance the theory of locally compact groups, as well as giving insights into the phenomena of self-similarity and branching as they occur in group theory and dynamical systems.Read moreRead less
Algorithmic approaches to braids and their generalisations. This project combines theoretical methods from pure mathematics with computational experiments in order to gain new knowledge. The objects of interest, so-called braid groups and generalisations, are important for many fields of mathematics, but also have applications for data security. Both the theoretical outcomes of this project and the algorithms developed will strengthen Australia as a centre of cutting-edge research in computatio ....Algorithmic approaches to braids and their generalisations. This project combines theoretical methods from pure mathematics with computational experiments in order to gain new knowledge. The objects of interest, so-called braid groups and generalisations, are important for many fields of mathematics, but also have applications for data security. Both the theoretical outcomes of this project and the algorithms developed will strengthen Australia as a centre of cutting-edge research in computational algebra. Moreover, the results can lead to new technologies for protecting confidential data, which are more efficient and hence cheaper to implement than existing alternatives. Secure identification of legitimate users in the context of online banking is one possible field of application.Read moreRead less
Scale-Multiplicative Semigroups and Geometry. Symmetry is treated mathematically through the algebraic concept of a group. Conversely, geometric representations play a crucial role in group theory. Many classes of groups, such as the connected groups that arise in physics, have useful geometric representations, but such a representation is lacking in the case of general disconnected groups. Certain disconnected groups, closely related in algebraic terms to the connected ones, do have a geometric ....Scale-Multiplicative Semigroups and Geometry. Symmetry is treated mathematically through the algebraic concept of a group. Conversely, geometric representations play a crucial role in group theory. Many classes of groups, such as the connected groups that arise in physics, have useful geometric representations, but such a representation is lacking in the case of general disconnected groups. Certain disconnected groups, closely related in algebraic terms to the connected ones, do have a geometric representation called a 'building'. This project aims to address the lack of a representation for general disconnected groups by extending the notion of a building to create combinatorial structures on which these groups act as symmetries.Read moreRead less