$7.1 million to advance health and medical research

Four researchers from Macquarie University have received just over $7.1 million in prestigious Investigator Grants from the Australian Government's National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC).

The grants will add to the global body of knowledge and understanding in asthma, medication safety, and motor neurone disease, and eye problems that manifest in neurodegenerative diseases like glaucoma and multiple sclerosis.

Professor Sakkie Pretorius, Macquarie University Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Research), congratulated the researchers.

"NHMRC Investigator Grants are provided to the highest-performing researchers at all career stages, and it is extremely pleasing to see four of our Macquarie researchers being recognised for their achievements with such significant levels of funding," he said.

"These are just some of the areas of health and medical investigation in which the University, our research centres, and our research teams drive innovation and advancement.

"Projects like these have significant potential to affect quality of life and treatment outcomes for millions of people worldwide."

Professor Sakkie Pretorius, Macquarie University Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Research), congratulated the researchers.

"NHMRC Investigator Grants are provided to the highest-performing researchers at all career stages, and it is very pleasing to see four of our Macquarie people being recognised for their achievements with such significant levels of funding," he said.

"These are just some of the areas of health and medical investigation that the University and its research centres excel in.

"Projects like these have considerable potential to affect quality of life and treatment outcomes for people millions of people worldwide."

Professor Helen Reddel from Macquarie Medical School and the Woolcock Institute of Medical Research has been awarded a Leadership Level 3 grant totalling $2,785,304 for research entitled, "Paradigm-changing strategies to reduce global asthma mortality and morbidity". Her program of work is funded for five years, and aims to reduce the global burden of death and disability due to asthma and other respiratory diseases. It will provide evidence for an innovative way of rapidly diagnosing patients who have respiratory symptoms such as breathlessness and cough, and it will develop a comprehensive approach for implementing a new asthma treatment strategy that both relieves patients' symptoms and reduces the risk of severe attacks. This research aims to improve how clinicians assess people who have respiratory symptoms and respond to patients' treatment needs, with innovations that are easy to implement around the world.

Professor Johanna Westbrook from the Australian Institute of Health Innovation at Macquarie University will receive $2,000,000 over five years as part of a Leadership Level 2 Investigator Grant. Her research, "Optimising and leveraging technology to improve medication safety", will expand on groundbreaking work done by Professor Westbrook and her team to optimise IT systems in order to reduce medication errors, saving lives and money. Multimillion dollar IT systems are already in place to improve medication safety, yet errors continue to cause harm and death in both hospitals and residential aged care facilities. The team's work has developed innovative new ways to identify why and how these systems are failing, solutions to improve their effectiveness and novel ways to advance the use of the data generated by these systems.

Associate Professor Yuyi (Alvin) You from Macquarie Medical School has been awarded $1,301,887.50 over five years under an Emerging Leadership Level 2 grant. Associate Professor You's project, "The Visual System: A Window into Glial Dynamics and Neuroinflammatory Pathways in Neurodegenerative Diseases", it will explore eye problems resulting from diseases like glaucoma and multiple sclerosis to further their understanding of the ongoing death of nerve cells. Associate Professor You and his team hope to uncover how the damage begins and expands, and ways to stop it. The project will combine lab studies with patient data in an effort to develop protective treatments for these neurodegenerative diseases.

Associate Professor Kelly Williams from the Macquarie University Motor Neuron Disease Research Centre receives $1,056,487.60 over five years for a project titled, "Deciphering the genetic landscape of motor neurone disease (MND) towards improved outcomes for patients". MND is a fatal neurodegenerative condition for which there is no cure. Genetic discoveries are vital to providing diagnostic tools, leading to better understanding of the disease, and resulting in the development of therapies. The Emerging Leadership Level 2 Investigator Grant will allow Professor Williams to harness sophisticated genomics and computational analysis methods to uncover gene defects in both heredity and sporadic MND. The project will also employ deep clinical and biological profiling to develop predictive models of disease progression and prognosis.

L-R: Professor Helen Reddel, Professor Johanna Westbrook, Associate Professor Yuyi (Alvin) You and Associate Professor Kelly Williams

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