The University of Tasmania has been awarded more than $14.8 million in highly competitive funding for medical research projects that will target some of the State’s most pressing health concerns.
The funding is the largest amount ever awarded to the University in a single round from the National Health and Medical Research Council’s Ideas Grant Scheme.
It will support seven innovative research projects applicable to Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, multiple sclerosis, cardiovascular disease and pulmonary fibrosis.
Four of the seven projects are in the Menzies Institute for Medical Research, two in the Tasmanian School of Medicine and one in the Wicking Dementia Research and Education Centre.
The Director of the Menzies Institute for Medical Research, Professor Tracey Dickson, said new research projects would tackle some of Tasmania’s most serious health issues.
“With Australia’s highest incidence of MS, most rapidly ageing population and statistically a very high prevalence of cardiovascular disease, we are focussing our research capability where it can have the most impact in Tasmania”.
“Every one of us knows someone whose life is being adversely affected by neurodegenerative disease or cardiovascular disease. Our work to better understand these conditions is vital in the global efforts towards improved treatments and, one day, hopefully a cure.
“Understanding more about how our genetics are related to our health and how we respond to treatments is also critical to unlocking answers for these diseases."
University of Tasmania Vice-Chancellor Professor Rufus Black congratulated the research teams.
“It is so important that the contribution we make, through world class medical research, has a deep connection and lasting impact for the Tasmanian community we serve,” Professor Black said.
“Our research is furthering global understanding of complex health and medical problems and, in the most human way, is a critical contribution from Tasmania to the world.
University of Tasmania projects – NHMRC 2023 Ideas Grant Scheme
Professor Jo Dickinson (Menzies) – Accelerating precision medicine for pulmonary fibrosis (PF): characterising the high risk PF genetic landscape
Understanding the genes causing inherited disease is revolutionising how we diagnose and treat people with these conditions. The objective of this project is to bring these advances to those with devastating inherited fibrotic lung disease by addressing the current critical gaps in our knowledge of the genes involved. This knowledge will provide patients and their health care team with better options for early diagnosis, and improved tailored treatments for this fatal lung disease.
Value: $4,409,340
Professor Kaylene Young (Menzies) – What causes multiple sclerosis onset and progression?
In multiple sclerosis (MS) immune cells attack the brain. A person's genes, environment and lifestyle choices can influence whether they develop MS and the severity of disease. But we don't know how these factors alter brain cell function to start or worsen MS. To figure this out, we studied families with multiple members who have MS. We identified gene mutations carried by people with MS, with the potential to change brain cells function. We will now determine how brain cells are affected.
Value: $3,653,278
Professor Eric Moses (Menzies) – Getting to the heart of the matter: a novel “Omics” risk score for cardiovascular disease risk assessment in women following pre-eclampsia
Women who have a pregnancy complicated by pre-eclampsia and other high blood pressure disorders are at much greater risk of heart disease later in life than women who have healthy pregnancies. There is currently no clinical test that can be used to identify those women at greatest risk. This project aims to develop a clinical test for this unmet need, using machine learning and large patient datasets.
Value: $2,243,597
Dr Owen Marshall (Menzies) – Wake up call: deciphering the regulatory networks that reactivate neural stem cells
Neural stem cells generate our brain cells as we grow. However, during much of our lives they stop producing new brain cells, and enter a sleeping, "quiescent" state. Understanding what maintains their quiescence, and how they can be reawakened to make new brain cells, is vital to help our brains recover from injury or trauma. Dr Marshall and a team of collaborators in Australia, Germany and Norway will uncover the complex regulatory networks that make quiescence possible, and identify new factors that allow reactivation from the quiescent state.
Value: $1,345,763
Associate Professor Brad Sutherland (Tasmanian School of Medicine) - Checking the pulse of pericytes: Do microglia cause a breakdown of brain blood vessels in Alzheimer’s disease?
Pericytes are cells that control blood flow through capillaries. Microglia in the brain respond to inflammation. Some microglia interact with pericytes which may control blood flow and brain function. In Alzheimer’s disease (AD), this interaction is disrupted. This proposal will use innovative techniques to understand how pericytes and microglia interact and how this goes wrong in AD. This opens up new potential treatment options for AD.
Value: $1,278,439,
Associate Professor Jane Alty (Wicking Dementia Research and Education Centre) - Hiding in plain sight: Early identification of neurodegenerative disorders with computer analysis of face and eye movements
Alzheimer’s disease (AD) and Parkinson’s disease (PD) start damaging the brain 15-20 years before symptoms begin and, at by the time a diagnosis is made, they are hard to treat because the changes in the brain are already quite advanced. This project addresses the urgent need to find new ways to detect AD and PD much earlier - so people can start prevention and clinical trials and scientists can research better treatments to improve people’s quality of life. There is evidence that face and eye-movement patterns change very early in AD and PD but these changes are usually too subtle for the human eye to detect. In this project, we will develop a simple new computer/ mobile phone test that uses Artificial Intelligence technologies to analyse face and eye movements and precisely identify patterns that are associated with the earliest signs of AD and PD.
Value: $1,006,412,
John Lin (Tasmanian School of Medicine) - Multi-wavelength optogenetic manipulation of basolateral neurons and synapses
The project will develop new sets of molecular and protein-based tools to control the activities of neurons with different coloured light. This would allow scientists to easily manipulate the connectivities between brain cells to understand their functional consequences. This will be used to understand how rewards are encoded by the neurocircuitry in a behaving organism.
Value: $906,335