This program application seeks to draw on the skills of a world leading group of Australian researchers to bring novel HIV vaccine designs to clinical trials, improve vaccine design and create new opportunities for commercialisation. The Chief Investigators, Prof David Cooper, Prof Peter Doherty (Nobel Prize winner), A-Prof Stephen Kent and Prof Ian Ramshaw, have achieved major scientific developments including: innovative collaborative clinical trials, cutting edge research in T cell immunology ....This program application seeks to draw on the skills of a world leading group of Australian researchers to bring novel HIV vaccine designs to clinical trials, improve vaccine design and create new opportunities for commercialisation. The Chief Investigators, Prof David Cooper, Prof Peter Doherty (Nobel Prize winner), A-Prof Stephen Kent and Prof Ian Ramshaw, have achieved major scientific developments including: innovative collaborative clinical trials, cutting edge research in T cell immunology, the establishment of the only PC3-level nonhuman primate facility in the Southern hemisphere, T cell immunogenicity of the DNA-viral vector prime-boost vaccine regimens and ground-breaking research on cytokine co-expressing viral vector vaccines. The Principle Investigators also have a record of substantial achievement in relation to HIV and T cell biology as well as novel vaccination technologies. There is a strong history of successful collaboration among this group leading to the award of major NIH funding.Read moreRead less
The development of vaccines and better treatments for HIV-AIDS and Hepatitis C are urgent global health priorities. This Program will undertake studies to better understand effective immunity against HIV and hepatitis C, allowing the rational design and testing of novel vaccines and treatments. The Program brings together a team of researchers with skills in basic virology and immunology with those providing expertise in translating findings in the laboratory into human clinical trials.
Interactions Between Adaptable Pathogens, Drugs And The Human Host
Funder
National Health and Medical Research Council
Funding Amount
$5,727,327.00
Summary
The Centre for Clinical Immunology and Biomedical Statistics (CCIBS) represents a collaboration between Royal Perth Hospital and Murdoch University that has brought together internationally recognised expertise in clinical immunology, experimental biology and innovation in biostatistics and computing. These resources have been applied to a broad range of research issues within the broad framework of HIV and hepatitis C disease and treatment. CCIBS has become a leading centre of research excellen ....The Centre for Clinical Immunology and Biomedical Statistics (CCIBS) represents a collaboration between Royal Perth Hospital and Murdoch University that has brought together internationally recognised expertise in clinical immunology, experimental biology and innovation in biostatistics and computing. These resources have been applied to a broad range of research issues within the broad framework of HIV and hepatitis C disease and treatment. CCIBS has become a leading centre of research excellence internationally, establishing a reputation for innovative approaches to host-viral interactions that are built on a long tradition of research into the population genetics of both human and viral genomes, combined with a willingness to negotiate complex computation and statistical challenges in order to faithfully reflect dynamic biological processes at a population level. An early recognition that large and integrated repositories of genetic and clinical data are fundamental to the research success in the genomic era has also led to the creation of the single most comprehensive repository of HIV genetic sequencing data in the world. The contributions that CCIBS has made to several distinct areas of research, including understanding viral adaptation to host immune responses, the development of genetic testing to predict drug hypersensitivity reactions, and causes of antiretroviral drug-associated toxicities, have been published in prestigious journals including Science, Nature, Nature Immunology, The Lancet, Proceedings of National Academy of Sciences, and The American Journal of Human Genetics, and have also resulted in numerous international collaborations that recognise the unique attributes that CCIBS has been able to bring to the global research effort aimed at understanding fundamental aspects of HIV and hepatitis C biology and treatment.Read moreRead less
Equitable Access To Stuttering Treatments: Developing Distance And Self Managed Treatment Models
Funder
National Health and Medical Research Council
Funding Amount
$4,321,062.00
Summary
The development of normal verbal communication is of the utmost importance to human health. Stuttering is a prevalent disorder that severely interferes with communication. It can be disfiguring and typically causes speech related social anxiety. Social phobia is present in around half of adults affected. It prevents attainment of occupational potential and children who stutter are typically teased and bullied at school. For the past decade NHMRC Project funding has enabled the present team to co ....The development of normal verbal communication is of the utmost importance to human health. Stuttering is a prevalent disorder that severely interferes with communication. It can be disfiguring and typically causes speech related social anxiety. Social phobia is present in around half of adults affected. It prevents attainment of occupational potential and children who stutter are typically teased and bullied at school. For the past decade NHMRC Project funding has enabled the present team to conduct world class basic research and clinical trials in stuttering. Significant gains have resulted from that research, in particular the development of treatments across the age groups that have a significant evidence base. However, it is becoming increasingly clear that there are serious barriers to the implementation of these evidence based treatments, and innovative treatment developments are needed to address this. In particular, speech pathology services for rural and remotely located patients and their families are incompletely funded, and even in urban settings workplace restrictions have resulted in speech pathologists delivering incomplete and piecemeal treatments. The program of research will develop the following innovative treatment models to solve this problem: �Distance intervention models for the delivery of speech pathology services to rural patients and their families and others who are isolated from treatment services. �Self-managed treatment models for children and adults who stutter, including procedures to minimise the ubiquitous problem of relapse in adults. It is widely understood that social anxiety is a significant problem for many stutterers and research is urgently needed to establish the extent of social anxiety in stutterers across the age groups and its negative effects on treatment effectiveness. Thus, a further aim of this program of research is to: �Identify those patients for whom social anxiety is likely to constitute a barrier to successful treatment. �Develop supplementary interventions to meet the needs of those socially anxious patients. The cause of stuttering is unknown. Understanding the mechanisms underpinning effective behavioural treatments would contribute to understanding causal factors in stuttering. Thus, this program of research also aims to: �Establish why behavioural treatments work, thereby generating new knowledge about causal factors.Read moreRead less
Pathogenesis Of Persistent Human Virus Infections Of Global Significance
Funder
National Health and Medical Research Council
Funding Amount
$6,571,328.00
Summary
The study will investigate why humans cannot eradicate particular viruses (HIV-AIDS, cytomegalovirus and herpes simplex virus), the long term effects of these viruses and ways to improve control. Current treatments can only partly suppress the levels of these viruses, because they persist in certain parts of the body called reservoirs, only to resurge later causing disease. Thus, the overall aim of the research program is to discover the mechanisms by which these viruses are able to successfully ....The study will investigate why humans cannot eradicate particular viruses (HIV-AIDS, cytomegalovirus and herpes simplex virus), the long term effects of these viruses and ways to improve control. Current treatments can only partly suppress the levels of these viruses, because they persist in certain parts of the body called reservoirs, only to resurge later causing disease. Thus, the overall aim of the research program is to discover the mechanisms by which these viruses are able to successfully persist within reservoirs in the human body. The research program brings together a group of 6 leading scientists and clinicians located at 3 sites in 2 Australian cities. The team is comprised of experts in the study of HIV-AIDS, cytomegalovirus and herpes simplex virus who will combine their knowledge and expertise to speed up the process of research on these viruses that are of major health importance. Studies will also utilise a number of cutting edge technologies that now make it possible to much more rapidly and precisely determine how viruses cause disease. Advances in our understanding of how viruses persist may form the basis for treatments aimed at controlling persistent infections and the serious diseases caused by these viruses.Read moreRead less
New Evidence To Guide Decisions About The Prevention And Treatment Of Common Cardiovascular Diseases.
Funder
National Health and Medical Research Council
Funding Amount
$7,309,675.00
Summary
The Program brings together clinicians, epidemiologists and statisticians in a unique endeavour designed to improve the prevention and treatment of heart attack and stroke. For the foreseeable future, these conditions will remain leading causes of death and disease in Australia and most other countries in the region. While there are many established treatment and prevention strategies for these conditions there remains great potential for further advances to be made, which might avert very large ....The Program brings together clinicians, epidemiologists and statisticians in a unique endeavour designed to improve the prevention and treatment of heart attack and stroke. For the foreseeable future, these conditions will remain leading causes of death and disease in Australia and most other countries in the region. While there are many established treatment and prevention strategies for these conditions there remains great potential for further advances to be made, which might avert very large numbers of premature deaths and serious disabling outcomes. This Program of research seeks to provide new information that will give patients, doctors and policy makers innovative options for the treatment and prevention of heart attack and stroke. The Program will incorporate two main elements: observational studies and randomised controlled trials. The observational studies will establish the precise importance of each of the main causes of cardiovascular diseases (such as diabetes, blood pressure, smoking and cholesterol) at different ages, in different ethnic groups and in different geographic regions. Furthermore, these studies will also define the relative importance of established and novel risk factors for cardiovascular disease, providing important new information about how resources for prevention should be directed. The large-scale trials will provide evidence about the effectiveness and safety of a range of new cardiovascular disease prevention and treatment strategies. The work will build on the team�s very successful approach of evaluating the effects of established interventions in high-risk groups for whom those particular treatments are not currently indicated.The Program will also include studies that address the critical issue of translating health research findings into practice _ in terms of health policy, clinical practice and consumer behaviour. A particular focus involves the application and evaluation of novel Internet technologies for promoting best practice. The methodologies used by the team will ensure that the evidence generated by the Program is as precise and reliable as possible, in order to provide a sound base to guide decisions about changes in health care policy and practice. The research findings will have direct relevance to the healthcare needs of millions of Australians within the next five years, and the impact of the work will be assured by the development of implementation and dissemination plans for each major component of the Program.Read moreRead less
Antibodies are made by B-cells and are essential for a functional immune system. B cells circulate in the body, and, when they encounter an invader, they mature into antibody-producing cells (ASC). A small proportion of the cells become “memory” cells with the potential to become ASC should the same infection occur in the future. This is the basis of vaccination. This program aims to understand how a B cell changes into an ASC. We aim eventually to be able to improve vaccines and understand dise ....Antibodies are made by B-cells and are essential for a functional immune system. B cells circulate in the body, and, when they encounter an invader, they mature into antibody-producing cells (ASC). A small proportion of the cells become “memory” cells with the potential to become ASC should the same infection occur in the future. This is the basis of vaccination. This program aims to understand how a B cell changes into an ASC. We aim eventually to be able to improve vaccines and understand diseases such as allergy, lupus, arthritis and leukaemia to develop novel therapies.Read moreRead less