Health and Medical research continues to grow at UOW
21 Oct 2008 | Bernie Goldie
The University of Wollongong has been awarded more than $2.5 million in funding through the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) project grant scheme.
The funding, announced by Federal Minister for Health and Ageing Nicola Roxon, will help boost health and medical research at UOW which is currently constructing a new Illawarra Health and Medical Research Institute, due for completion in 2009.
Five UOW research projects were selected for funding by the NHMRC:
Professor Mark Walker (School of Biological Sciences) has been awarded $792,500 in a collaborative project with the University of California San Diego (UCSD) to investigate group A Streptococcus (GAS) disease which causes millions of throat and skin infections worldwide. The researchers have already discovered that a viral infection can reprogram GAS naturally. Further investigations into this phenomenon will help to better understand the process and help develop future therapeutics
Another related project ($461,500) which was successful was by Dr Jason McArthur (Biological Sciences) who is investigating an invasive bacterial pathogen which hijacks host proteins in the body and uses them to facilitate disease. The research will assist in the creation of novel drugs to treat invasive diseases
Professor Gordon Wallace and Professor David Officer (Intelligent Polymer Research Institute) have been awarded $506,000 for funding the development of bionic polymer structures for muscle regeneration. The research is in collaboration with Associate Professor Robert Kapsa and Dr Anthony Pennington from the St Vincent’s Hospital in Melbourne, and has the potential to improve treatments for damaged muscles in diseases such as muscular dystrophy
Professor Xu-Feng Huang and Dr Kelly Newell (Faculty of Health and Behavioural Sciences) will be involved in a project ($417,750) which will be the first of its kind to investigate a chemical which has the ability to induce schizophrenia-like symptoms and will assist researchers to better understand schizophrenia pathology
Professor Anatoly Rozenfeld and his research team at the Centre for Medical Radiation Physics (CMRP) were awarded funding for a project ($344,250) with the researchers from the University of Sydney and Sloan Kettering Cancer Centre (USA). The team will investigate how to optimise the treatment of melanomas and carcinomas (the most common malignancy in the human eye), using radiation therapy
In total, the Federal Government has announced $357 million in funding to support health and medical research to universities and research institutions across the country to enable Australia’s best and brightest health and medical researchers to continue their research. A full list of the successful UOW grant recipients are located at: http://www.uow.edu.au/research/rso/grants/outcomes/UOW051067.html
For further information contact the Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Research), Professor Judy Raper, on (02) 4221 3915.
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