Polarity Regulation In T Cells: Mechanisms And Consequences.
Funder
National Health and Medical Research Council
Funding Amount
$542,462.00
Summary
Advances in our understanding of how the immune system works have led to many breakthroughs in healthcare, including organ transplantation, management of autoimmune diseases and immunodeficiencies such as AIDS. To improve these treatments, we need a better understanding of how the immune system is controlled. This proposal explores the mechanisms by which immune cell signalling is regulated by spatial compartmentalisation within the cell.
Nerve pathways exist that carry information from the highest parts of the brain to the peripheral hearing organ, the inner ear. These descending control pathways have the potential to affect the hearing process in a number of ways; protecting from loud sounds, improving the detection of signals in noisy backgrounds, selecting stimuli of interest and regulating a variety of aspects of inner ear function. Abnormal function of these pathways can affect hearing sensitivity and may be important in ph ....Nerve pathways exist that carry information from the highest parts of the brain to the peripheral hearing organ, the inner ear. These descending control pathways have the potential to affect the hearing process in a number of ways; protecting from loud sounds, improving the detection of signals in noisy backgrounds, selecting stimuli of interest and regulating a variety of aspects of inner ear function. Abnormal function of these pathways can affect hearing sensitivity and may be important in phenomena such as tinnitus and other disorders of hearing. This project will investigate the subtle effects that selective activation of these pathways has on inner ear function and will attempt to unravel the different influences that subcomponents of the pathways have on the different aspects of hearing.Read moreRead less
The Effects Of Inherent Inaccuracies In DXA In Vivo BMD Measurements On Osteopenic/Osteoporotic Diagnostics/Prognositics
Funder
National Health and Medical Research Council
Funding Amount
$411,980.00
Summary
Osteoporosis (porous bone) and consequent associated bone fractures of mainly post-menopausal women and the elderly of both genders constitutes a significant, widespread and rapidly growing public health problem. It is already a major health-cost burden in Australia and worldwide and is set to increase dramatically over the next few decades as the proportion of the population at or above the osteoporosis-prone age increases sharply. Current diagnostic evaluations of osteoporosis, bone mineral st ....Osteoporosis (porous bone) and consequent associated bone fractures of mainly post-menopausal women and the elderly of both genders constitutes a significant, widespread and rapidly growing public health problem. It is already a major health-cost burden in Australia and worldwide and is set to increase dramatically over the next few decades as the proportion of the population at or above the osteoporosis-prone age increases sharply. Current diagnostic evaluations of osteoporosis, bone mineral status of the skeleton, mechanical integrity of bone, and bone fracture risk are mainly based on X-ray absorption measurements of a given individual's bone mineral density (BMD) using Dual-energy X-ray Absorptiometric (DXA) bone densitometer instrumentation. New drugs to retard, ameliorate, or reverse the low bone mineral density condition of osteoporosis are now becoming available, but cannot be prescribed unless sufficiently low BMD is demonstrated for a given patient. The efficacy of these drugs is usually held to be greatest at the earliest stage of osteoporosis (osteopenia) and their effectiveness evaluated on the basis of DXA-measured bone mineral density. The Chief Investigator of this project has already shown by published quantitative analysis and simulation studies that such BMD measurements are inherently inaccurate; that errors of 20% and greater can readily pertain, particularly for those patients at the early stages of osteoporosis and those at or above the osteoporosis-prone age -- the very individuals for whom bone mineral density values are often of paramount interest and concern. These systematic DXA inaccuracies can be large enough to either mask the presence of osteoporosis or lead to false diagnoses and patient monitoring results. The present project, for the first time anywhere, is desiged to quantitatively establish the extent of these inaccuracies using actual DXA densitometers utilizing sophisitcated and precise methods.Read moreRead less