UQ Health And Medical Researchers Share $46m Of Funding

24 UQ researchers have been awarded more than $46 million in research funding through the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) Investigator Grants and Partnership Projects schemes.

Projects range from developing malaria therapeutics, better understanding chronic pain, identifying cancers prone to mastitis, to developing a Strep A vaccine, enhancing immunotherapy for breast cancer, and improving care models for Indigenous Australians.

The Investigator Grants program is the NHMRC's largest funding scheme, enabling researchers to advance projects across biomedical, clinical, public health and health services research.

The Partnership Projects scheme provides funding to answer specific research questions that could influence health and wellbeing through changes in the delivery, organisation, funding and access to health services.

Investigator Grant recipients

• Dr Mohd Hafiz Abdul-Aziz - to demonstrate how personalised antimicrobial therapy can improve recovery, reduce antimicrobial resistance, and set new standards for treating critically ill patients in intensive care units.
• Professor David Ascher - to combat antimicrobial resistance by developing tools that predict therapeutic resistance before it becomes widespread.
• Professor Roxanne Bainbridge - to create and evaluate a culturally aligned Value-Based Care model for Indigenous Australians to improve health outcomes and reduce hospital admissions.
• Dr Lena Batoon - to characterise persistent breast cancer cells and explore strategies to eliminate them, potentially preventing recurrence and metastasis for a permanent cure
• Professor Barry Dickson to examine anxiety and depression as 'connectopathies' caused by chronic stress and use a novel model to map changes in brain connectivity in animal models.
• Professor Denise Doolan - to advance effective malaria therapeutics, with the potential to save lives, improve quality of life, and create solutions for other complex diseases.
• Dr Michael Healy - to design a suite of molecules that stabilise Retromer, a key component in waste removal, which could lead to novel therapies for Parkinson's, Alzheimer's and related dementias.
• Professor Paul Hodges - to improve how chronic pain is understood and measured, develop technologies to guide treatment, and test treatment matching through clinical trial.
• Dr Jingwei Hou - to develop sensitive, flexible, and wearable X-ray detectors to improve accuracy, comfort, and reduce risks in paediatric X-ray imaging.
• Professor David Johnson - to transform home-based dialysis, making it cheaper, safer, and more effective by standardising quality indicators, conducting patient-centric trials, and implementing findings globally to improve patient outcomes.
• Dr Robert Ju - to identify cancers prone to metastasis and develop a drug to target them, improving prognosis, diagnosis, patient survival, and health outcomes.
• Dr Shelley Keating - to establish an exercise care pathway for people with a type of liver disease, explore benefits, and develop sustainable exercise options for long-term health improvements.
• Professor Gita Mishra - to improve health policy and guidelines for the diagnosis and management of disruptive menstrual and gynaecological conditions, enhancing health and wellbeing for affected individuals.
• Professor Andreas Obermair - to improve surgical outcomes in gynaecological cancer through evidence-based, personalised and patient-centred care, led by international clinical trials.
• Professor Jason Roberts - to prevent antimicrobial resistance by using precision antimicrobial dosing to treat patients with severe infections.
• Dr Jessica Schults - to develop state-of-the-art systems and knowledge translation solutions that inform infection control programs and combat rising infection-associated death rates.
• Dr Ayesha Shah - to develop better diagnostic techniques and new therapies to treat or eradicate small intestinal bacterial overgrowth.
• Dr Zewen Kelvin Tuong - to predict relapses and develop more effective cancer vaccines for children with rare forms of blood cancer to improve relapse monitoring, and tailor vaccine development.
• Professor Mark Walker - to partner with vaccine manufacturers to lead research in progressing StrepA vaccine formulations into clinical development.
• Associate Professor David Whiley - to develop new ways to manage gonorrhoea, including developing new rapid detection methods and tracking to improve detection and treatment of cases and sexual contacts.
• Associate Professor Joy Wolfram - to develop a pipeline for novel biotherapeutics to treat cardiovascular disease, improving patient outcomes and prolonging healthy life.
• Professor Chengzhong (Michael) Yu - to enhance immunotherapy for triple-negative breast cancer, leading to better patient outcomes and new treatment options.
• Dr Jian Zeng - to develop statistical methods and software to enhance disease prediction and understanding of biological mechanisms.

Partnership Projects scheme recipient

• Professor Amanda Ullman - to partner with Australian hospitals, researchers and policy makers to implement a new medical device that will reduce pain and improve the ability to give therapies to children undergoing hospital procedures.

UQ Communications

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