Stroke can be devastating - often leaving a person disabled or deceased. This Stroke Finder Helmet is an innovative tool which could have enormous impact for survival and disability rates for stroke victims.
moreStroke can be devastating - often leaving a person disabled or deceased. This Stroke Finder Helmet is an innovative tool which could have enormous impact for survival and disability rates for stroke victims.
moreA/Prof Suzanne Snodgrass, Mr Rutger de Zoete
Associate Professor Brett Graham, Dr Phil Jobling, Ms Kelly Smith
Changes to the nervous system during chronic pain remain poorly understood. What we do know is that nerve cells in the spinal cord play an important role in pain signalling because the spinal cord is the first site where information from our bodies is processed to ultimately shape sensory experience.
moreAssociate Professor Jeannette Lechner-Scott, Dr Saad Ramadan
Magnetic resonance imaging is not only important in the diagnosis of multiple sclerosis but also to monitor therapy. New treatment options are very effective in reducing inflammation in MS and significantly reducing relapse rate.
moreDr Lauren Harms, Emeritus Professor Patricia Michie
Schizophrenia is a severe, chronic mental illness that is debilitating to the individual and ranks among the top 10 causes of disability in developed countries worldwide.
moreConjoint Associate Profosser Michael Pollack, Professor Michael Nilsson, Associate Professor Rohan Walker, Dr Lin Kooi Ong
Patients recovering from stroke often report high and unremitting levels of psychological stress. Clinically, the presence of stress throughout the recovery process is highly significant, as stress hormones, most notably cortisol, are known to impair multiple aspects of brain repair including cortical remodelling, angiogenesis, and neurogenesis.
moreAmeha Seyoum
Associate Professor Chris Dayas, Associate Professor Brett Graham
The Resilient Brain Initiative through HMRI and the University of Newcastle aims to identify new treatments to slow, stop or reverse declines in brain function caused by stress.
moreAssociate Professor Frederick Rohan Walker
Professor Neil Spratt, Dr Damian McLeod
Ischaemic stroke, caused by blood clot blocking an artery to the brain, is a leading cause of death and disability. In around 10% of patients the stroke enlarges in the first 24-48 h (stroke-in-progression).
moreDr Jamie Flynn, William Palmer, Dr Antony Martin, Dr Craig Gedye
Cancer is an invasive, adaptive process that interacts and adapts to the microenvironment, subjugating the normal tissue around it to optimise growth and survival. Understanding this growth and interaction in three dimensions will add additional insight into the way cancers expand and spread.
moreAssociate Professor Coralie English, Dr Heidi Janssen, Associate Professor Rohan Walker, Professor Neil Spratt, Professor Robin Callister
Sitting for long periods of time each day increases the risk of cardiovascular disease. Stroke survivors living at home spend 75% of their waking hours sitting down, which is much higher than healthy people of a similar age, making them at particularly high risk.
moreProfessor Sally Chan, Dr Lyn Ebert, Donovan Jones, Eileen Dowse, Shanna Fealy
Transition to motherhood is a major development in a woman’s life which is marked by dramatic changes in identity, roles and relationships. Although many mothers are able to meet the challenges of parenting, others, especially first time mothers, feel overburdened and some become depressed.
moreDr Jamie Flynn, Dr Antony Martin, William Palmer
Neuropathic pain is a complex, chronic and debilitating pain that often accompanies diseases such as multiple sclerosis, diabetes, peripheral nerve injury and stroke. Our understanding of neuropathic pain is poor and as such is difficult to treat.
moreDementia is the second leading cause of death in Australia with Alzheimer’s disease accounting for 70% of age-associated dementia.
moreDementia and cogitive decline are major concerns for our ageing population. Cholesterol is a promminent risk factor for Alzheimer's Disease. If a person has a particular form of the cholesterol carrying protein Apolipoprotein E (ApoE) their chances of developing Alzheimer's Disease rise 15 fold.
moreDr Anthony Proietto
The CN2 will provide expert clinical consultancy to support high level care coordination for brain cancer patients requiring complex management.
moreJoshua Brzozowski
Metastatic pancreatic cancer has a low survival rate and even with the best existing therapies the survival is less than a year. Despite advances in treatments and outcomes for other cancers, this has not happened for pancreatic cancer with no advances in mortality reduction observed over the past decade. This grim outlook drives our research, which focuses on developing novel diagnostic strategies for pancreatic cancer.
moreMr Sam Faulkner
The Bioimpedence Scales are essentially a pair of 'fancy' scales that measure the density of body tissue to predict body mass - amount and composition. This is important because we know the relative amounts of fat and lean tissue in a patient affect how much of a drug gets to a particular site like the tumour and also determines how long it stays there and how the drug is released over time.
moreDr Jennette Sakoff, Dr Mike Fay; Dr James Lynam
Annually there are 2,000 new cases of brain cancer in Australia. Prognosis for people with brain cancer is dire. Glioblastoma (GBM) is the most common brain tumour, the most lethal and difficult to treat.
moreSandy Nixon
Dr Raymond Cook, Robyn Leonard, Jennifer Byrne
Brain Cancer Biobanking Australia (BCBA) is an initiative established to facilitate the networking of both adult and paediatric brain cancer biobanking operations Australia-wide with the aim of providing researchers with access to the number, quality and type of tissue samples and associated data
moreDr Nikola Bowden, Dr Jim Scurry, Dr Geoff Otton, Dr Ken Jaaback, Dr Janine Lombard
Project Goal - To develop a test for predicting ovarian cancer response/resistance to cisplatin chemotherapy that can be quickly implemented in clincial centres. Such a test would let the doctor know that the patient is becoming resistant to cisplatin chemotherapy. At this stage there is no test available meaning some people remain on the wrong treatment protocol for the course of their treatment, suffereing toxic side effects for no benefit. The sooner treatment is switched the higher the chance that the patient will respond.
moreDr James Lynam, Dr Jennette Sakoff, Professor Jenny Martin, Dr Lisa Lincz, Dr Mike Fay, Giovana Celli Marchett, Dr Peter Galettis
Annually there are 2,000 new cases of brain cancer in Australia. Prognosis for people with brain cancer is dire. It is the highest cause of death in 0-39 age group with a 5-year survival rate of 19%. Brain cancer results in 5,000 hospitalisations per year (average stay 12.5 days, the longest of any cancer) and has the highest lifetime cost per patient of $1.89m [1].
moreCancer is one of the leading causes of death worldwide. Brain cancer is the 15th most common cancer in the world, and has one of the worst survival rates of all cancer types, with only approximately half of patients surviving for one year post-diagnosis. This poor survival rate highlights that new treatments for brain cancer are urgently required.
moreCancer immunotherapy is a therapeutic strategy that harnesses cancer patients own immune system to specifically target cancer cells. A new class of newly developed drugs in cancer immunotherapy (called immune checkpoint inhibitors) can cause long lasting regression of tumors and prevent relapse but only a small number of patients currently benefit from these drugs.
moreProfessor Anthony Quail, Associate Professor David Cottee
Dexmedetomidine is an intravenous sedative drug with increasing clinical use anaesthesia and intensive care. The drug acts within the central nervous system (CNS) and has potential adverse effects on the control of breathing and the circulation.
moreProfessor Clare Collins, Dr Megan Rollo, Dr Tracy Burrows, Dr Melinda Hutchesson
This grant will support our eHealth research project measuring the impact of web-based feedback on dietary intake in improving eating patterns and health.
moreDr Megan Rollo, Professor Clare Collins, Dr Melinda Hutchesson, Professor Robin Callister
Pregnancy is like a stress test, revealing a woman's long term risk to developing Type II Diabetes. Post delivery is the ideal time to address lifestyle risk factors but many women with gestational diabetes report a lack of support at this crucial time.
moreFathers have a unique and key role in shaping their children's dietary and physical activity behaviors and emerging evidence suggests suboptimal physical activity and dietary behaviours of fathers may be passed on to their children at a very young age.
moreDr Kirrilly Pursey
Kirrilly is an Accredited Practising Dietician, and was recently awarded her PhD investigating whether food addiction exists in young Australian adults.
moreFollowing a cardiovascular event (e.g. heart attack) the heart undergoes significant physical changes, including an increase in scar tissue, changes in morphology and decreased functional capacity (heart remodelling).
moreJessica Ferguson
This scholarship will support Jessica’s PhD, titled “Optimising lipid-lowering ability of dietary phytosterols for reducing cardiovascular disease risk”.
moreTrent Williams
Cardiac catheterisation and percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) are commonly performed procedures to investigate and manage cardiac disease.
moreProfessor Philip Morgan, A/Prof David Lubans, Ms Alyce Cook, Mrs Narelle Eather
Engaging dads and daughters to increase physical activity and social and emotional well-being in pre-adolescent girls: The DADEE (Dads And Daughters Exercising and Empowered) program
moreBruce King, Graham Goodwin
Funding to support the Gomeroi gaaynggal Community ArtsHealth running in Tamworth - covers art consumables which brings participants into the centre to participate in health screening and research being conducted.
moreA/Prof Bruce King
Dr Carmel Smart, Associate Professor Bruce King
A common challenge for people with type 1 diabetes (T1D) is controlling significant elevations of blood glucose following meals [1]. This is of concern as postprandial hyperglycaemia has been identified as an important risk factor in the development of long-term complications of T1D including cardiovascular disease [2].
moreDr Carmel Smart, Associate Professor Bruce King, Dr Prudence Lopez
Associate Professor Bruce King
The ‘Gomeroi Gayaanggal’ Project to provide a holistic approach to social and emotional wellbeing within the Indigenous communities of Tamworth and Walgett, and will add Taree and Forster in Stage 2.
morePremature birth is the most common reason for a newborn baby to die. Unfortunately, current treatments for premature birth are not very effective. We have developed a mechanism for targeting the delivery of drugs to the uterine tissue, which we believe can be used to prevent or block preterm labour.
moreBinod Bindu Sharma, Laureate Professor Roger Smith, Professor Deborah Loxton
Background: Pregnancy is a precious event offering a human value to the biosphere. It is special to every woman and societal unit. Women suffer in comparison with men over a wide spectrum of human activity. The health situation of women in Nepal is poor. Maternal mortality in Nepal is among the highest in Asia (over 190/100,000 live births) and one of the worst ten in the world (WHO 2015).
moreDr Geoffry De Iuliis
Despite the prevalence of male infertility (with 1 in 20 men currently suffering) we still know relatively little about the underlying origins of many sperm defects.
moreJacinta Martin
More than 57,000 Australian women were diagnosed with some form of cancer in 2015. But there is the unavoidable secondary impact on fertility for those women, a potentially devastating legacy of their treatment following entry into disease remission.
moreCaitlin Chambers
Acrylamide is a known neurotoxin in humans, and is classified by the World Health Organisation as a probable human carcinogen.
moreSarah Delforce
Sarah’s research aims to improve the understanding of normal placenta development, and what might be going wrong in women who go on to develop pregnancy complications.
moreDr Jessie Sutherland is an outstanding and passionate early career resesrcher in HMRI's Reprodcution Program. Jessie will use her Equal Futures award to attend Australia's most highly attendned women's leadership program - the National Excellence in Educational Leadership Initiative's 2017 Advanced Leadership Program.
moreNatalie Dodd
Professor Billie Bonevski, Professor Amanda Baker, Dr Ashleigh Guillaumier, Professor Adrian Dunlop
In Australia, up to 95% of people entering AOD treatment smoke tobacco which is five times the national smoking rate. Although treatment clients are interested in quitting and make quit attempts, they find it difficult to remain quit in the long-term. Novel relapse prevention approaches are required for this high smoking prevalence population.
moreRutger De Zoete, Associate Professor Susan Snodgass
A/Prof Mark McEvoy
Cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of death worldwide. Nitric oxide is a major signaling molecule in the circulatory system, and is a key blood vessel dilator. Reduced nitric oxide (NO) availability in the circulatory system is thought to have a major role in cardiovascular disease development.
moreJacqueline Coombe
Jacqueline’s PhD is focussed on better understanding contraceptive use in Australia. While broad patterns of contraceptive usage are clear, in Australia particularly, we know little about women’s preferences for certain methods, how women make decisions about what method to use and how this translates to contraceptive practices in real life.
moreCan miners at risk of long-term low back pain be identified and provided with a low back pain prevention intervention to prevent the development of persistant pain co-existing lifestyle health risks?
moreAssociate Professor Glenn Reeves, Professor Caroline Blackwell, Marline Squance
Systemic lupus erythematous (SLE) is a common relapsing remitting inflammatory autoimmune illness affecting at least 1 in a 1000 of the population. Interplay of genetic and environmental factors has been established as playing a role in the pathogenesis of the disease.
moreConjoint Professor Caroline Blackwell
If persistent, painful ear infections of childhood can lead to long-term hearing and learning difficulties. Our multidisciplinary team has established an international reputation for studies of the slowly-growing Alloiococcus otitidis, present in over half of chronic ear infections among Indigenous and non-Indigenous children and some acute infections in which none of the usual bacterial pathogens that cause middle ear infection can be detected.
moreDr Fatemeh Moheimani, Professor Darryl Knight
Asthma affects more than 300 million people worldwide, with Australian’s suffering more from asthma (one in ten) than almost any other people in the world. Asthma is a major burden on Australia’s health care system and the economy. It can affect people of all ages - some people get asthma when they are young, others when they are older.
moreSmoking leads to lung inflammation that causes emphysema - a major health problem in Australia. Emphysema progressively declines even if smoking stops and there are no treatments.
moreAcute kidney injury is increasing in incidence globally and there is a strong association between acute kidney injury and the development of chronic kidney disease.
moreDr Scott Nightingale, Dr Milena Heinsch, Associate Professor Maria Kangas (Macquarie University), Professor Mike Jones (Macquarie University)
Cognitive-Behaviour Therapy, or CBT, is one of the few effective therapies for children with functional abdominal pain. But CBT sessions can be costly and difficult to access, particularly as multiple sessions are required.
moreDr Komal Vora, A/Professor Patricia Crock, Dr Vicki Maltby
HCRF has funded Dr Komal Vora’s study into Prader-Willi Syndrome – a complex genetic disorder that affects development and growth of the child, manifesting as cognitive disability, obesity, short stature and a chronic feeling of hunger.
moreChildren born to mothers with asthma are three times more likely to develop asthma themselves than those with asthmatic fathers, which suggests that a risk factor extends beyond genetics. There is emerging evidence that bacteria in the infant’s gut can impact immune function and contribute to the types of immune responses that are seen in asthma.
moreFood allergies cause an enormous health burden to our community and peanut allergy is the most severe and persistent food allergy.
moreKurtis Budden
Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease is a condition of persistent, progressive lung destruction caused by inhalation of damaging particles. Many current treatments are expensive, come with side-effects, or have very little effect on some patients.
moreCurrent therapies prevent only ~40% of asthma exacerbations. These figures are in the context of clinical trials - real life asthma exacerbations are even less likely to be prevented.
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