CCS diabetes researcher honoured by award

Dr Jay Jha won an ADS award

Scientist Dr Jay Jha has been recognised by the Australian Diabetes Society (ADS) in an award given at its recent annual meeting in Sydney.

Dr Jha, an NHMRC Early Career Research Fellow in the Monash Department of Diabetes, won the Basic Science Poster award for his work into Nox4 and Nox5, pro-oxidant enzymes believed to promote diabetic kidney disease.


“The Australian Diabetes Society is a largest nationwide association of clinicians and researchers for the study of diabetes, so winning this award is an achievement,” Dr Jha said. “It motivates me to keep working in the same direction,” he said.

The annual meeting of the Australian Diabetes Society and Australian Diabetes Educators Association was held at Sydney’s International Convention Centre from 21-23 August.

Dr Jha, who works in Professor Karin Jandeleit-Dahm’s team, said the poster compared the superiority as a target of Nox4 and Nox5. Nox4 is shown to have pathological relevance in experimental animal models of diabetes. The researchers’ work into it translated to a national clinical trial of an inhibitor that targets it, which is now underway.

The researchers then found that Nox5, which is not expressed in mice/rats but in humans, could be a superior target, Dr Jha said.

“Our new approach suggests that we should target Nox5 rather than Nox4 because Nox5 appears to be upstream of it, meaning it can regulate Nox4 expression,” he said. “That was the conclusion on the poster.”

After being short-listed for the award, Dr Jha was asked to present the poster in front of a panel of examiners and moderators, and an audience, and judged on this presentation.

He said the next phase of the Nox5 research involves using a specially bred, knockout rabbit model. If successful, the research would progress to the devolvement of specific Nox5 inhibitor and a subsequent clinical trial.