Novel Approaches To Nanomedicines For Future Therapies
Funder
National Health and Medical Research Council
Funding Amount
$2,414,215.00
Summary
Nanomedicines have the potential to transform healthcare by targeting significant health issues such as Alzheimer’s, diabetes and Parkinson’s diseases that have mainly eluded successful therapeutic solutions. In addition, nanotechnology has the potential to significantly improve the treatment of chronic pain by repurposing analgesic medications for improved effectiveness without significant side effects. I will target these two areas of research during the next five years.
Improving Patient-important Outcomes In Haemodialysis Through Validation And Implementation In Registries And Pragmatic Clinical Trials
Funder
National Health and Medical Research Council
Funding Amount
$408,082.00
Summary
Haemodialysis is the most common treatment for kidney failure but is associated with poor survival, high symptom burden and drastically reduced quality of life. Research often does not address these patient-important outcomes, thereby limiting our ability to discover effective interventions. This program aims to improve haemodialysis outcomes that are critically important to patients and clinicians through validation and implementation in clinical practice, registries and clinical trial.
Genetics Of Epilepsy: Completing Our Understanding
Funder
National Health and Medical Research Council
Funding Amount
$3,000,000.00
Summary
Finding genetic causes of epilepsies is vital for accurate diagnosis and family counseling, to optimize current treatments and to develop novel therapies. We will leverage our large collection of carefully evaluated Australian cases with international data sets, coordinated by Consortia that I chair, to develop a detailed understanding of the genetic causes of epilepsy. This will transform the use of genetics in the clinic, lead to better immediate treatment and aid in developing novel therapies
Computational Modelling To Understand Early-stage Neurodegeneration
Funder
National Health and Medical Research Council
Funding Amount
$645,205.00
Summary
Rather than attempting to reverse neurodegeneration, therapeutic strategies must target the earliest possible stages of disease, when treatments have the potential to prevent or slow down pathological progression. The proposed project will employ computational modelling using functional MRI to deliver highly efficient and sensitive markers of Familial Alzheimer’s disease and Huntington’s disease progression to inform when in the progression of disease clinical trials should take place.
Many cancers shed small amounts of DNA (circulating tumour DNA or ctDNA) into the patient’s bloodstream. Recent technological advances now allow levels of ctDNA to be accurately measured in the blood. Changes in ctDNA levels have potential to be used as specific markers of disease progression and/or response to cancer therapy. This research will advance the use of ctDNA to serially follow patients and individualise treatment decisions in cancer management across several cancer types.
Leveraging The Interface Between Epidemiology And Molecular Biology To Enhance Disease Prevention
Funder
National Health and Medical Research Council
Funding Amount
$1,850,925.00
Summary
Some diseases are becoming more common over time.The increase over time is too rapid to be due to genetics alone. My research program aims to identify the environmental drivers of these diseases so that we can improve the current efforts to stop these diseases before they even begin. The research program has a focus on factors impacting on how a child's brain develops, how food allergy begins and the factors that can prevent multiple sclerosis onset or slow progression.
Counteracting Age-associated Neurodegenerative Diseases Using Chaperone-based Amyloid Disaggregases
Funder
National Health and Medical Research Council
Funding Amount
$645,205.00
Summary
In neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s disease, proteins form clumps through changes in structure due to mutations or proteotoxic chemical insults. The formation of these toxic clumps causes brain cells to die prematurely triggering symptoms such as dementia. I have identified a molecular machine in human cells that efficiently clears these clumps. We are now developing strategies to activate this machine to repair damaged brain cells to slow/reserve neurodegenerative diseases.
Axonal Regeneration And Degeneration: Cellular And Molecular Mechanisms
Funder
National Health and Medical Research Council
Funding Amount
$2,088,220.00
Summary
The ability to surgically repair an injured axon and restore neuronal function is still a significant challenge in neurosurgery. However, a spontaneous repair mechanism, axonal fusion, by which the two separated ends of a transected axon are fused back together, has been observed in invertebrates. Understanding the molecular mechanisms of this biological event will allow us to determine its potential as a novel therapeutic approach to repair injured and damaged neurons.
Faecal Microbiota Transplantation And Other Novel Therapeutic Microbial Manipulation Strategies In Inflammatory Bowel Disease
Funder
National Health and Medical Research Council
Funding Amount
$645,205.00
Summary
There is growing interest in the role of microbial-based strategies including faecal microbiota transplantation (FMT) for the treatment of inflammatory bowel disease. This project will develop such strategies into valid treatment options through a combination of clinical & basic science work including (1) characterising viral & fungal factors of importance, (2) evaluation of novel orally-delivered formulations of FMT, and (3) development of better defined, more reproducible microbial treatments.
The Role Of A Low Emulsifier Diet To Treat Crohn's Disease
Funder
National Health and Medical Research Council
Funding Amount
$447,603.00
Summary
Currently, there are no specific diets known to treat Crohn’s disease (CD). Initial lab- and animal-based studies have indicated emulsifiers added to food drive inflammation in CD, but no human trials completed. This study will design and feed high and low emulsifier diets to healthy and CD subjects and measure markers of inflammation. This will establish the role of a low emulsifier diet to treat CD.