CCS wins $9M of MRFF Neurological Disorders grants

L-R: Prof Terry O'Brien, Dr Mastura Monif,
Prof Tomas Corcoran (UWA/SPHPM) and Professor Paul Myles

Congratulations to Central Clinical School researchers, Professor Terry O'Brien, Dr Mastura Monif and Professor Paul Myles, who jointly with School of Public Health and Preventive Medicine researcher Professor Tomas Corcoran have won approximately $9M of grants under the 2019 MRFF RCRDUN Neurological Disorders Mission 2020. The initiative had a total of $21.8M on offer nationwide as announced by Minister for Health Greg Hunt on 25 June 2020. See detail below.

Trial to help people with Motor Neurone Disease breathe easier at night receives MRFF funding

Professor Natasha Lannin

A $35.9M boost for rare cancers, rare diseases and unmet medical needs (RCRDUN) was announced 24 June by the Minister for Health, Greg Hunt for the Medical Research Future Fund RCRDUN initiative.

Professor Natasha Lannin, who leads the Brain Recovery and Rehabilitation Research Group in the Department of Neuroscience, is an investigator on a project funded by the RCRDUN Initiative. This $3.48M five year project is led by Professor David Berlowitz who is Chair of Physiotherapy (Austin Health) for the University of Melbourne.

Together the investigator team will conduct a trial measuring the effectiveness of non-invasive ventilation during sleep in people who suffer from Motor neurone disease (MND) then develop a comprehensive implementation package to move findings into clinical care.

MRFF funding success for discovering new drugs for epilepsy using personalised medicine

CIA Professor Patrick Kwan (left)  and  CIB Dr Ben Rollo (right),
both in the Central Clinical School’s Department of Neuroscience. 
The team includes CIC Dr Chris Langmead (Drug Discovery Biology, MIPS), 
CID Dr Katie Ayers (MCRI) and CIE Dr Alexander Harris (UniMelb)

Congratulations to Professor Patrick Kwan and colleagues, who have been awarded a MRFF Stem Cell Therapies Mission grant for $556,460. This grant was part of a suite to support research on treatments for incurable disease announced by the Commonwealth Minister for Health Greg Hunt on 20 June.

Epilepsy is a severe neurological disease which affects over 70 million people globally. Despite a concerted effort to identify new anti-seizure medications (ASMs) over the last 25 years, epilepsy remains uncontrolled in 30% of individuals, a condition known as drug-resistant epilepsy. Therefore, there exists an urgent unmet clinical need to identify new effective drugs to treat epilepsy.

16-22 June 2020 Central Clinical School recent publications

L-R: A/Prof Jane Muir and Prof Peter Gibson have
co-authored a review paper with Dr Emma Halmos,
who completed her PhD under their supervision.
The paper is on FODMAPS, prebiotics and gut health.

Recent publications as notified by PubMed during the week 16-22 June 2020 from Central Clinical School affiliated researchers in the following departments. This is not a comprehensive list:

• Australian Centre for Blood Diseases
• Diabetes
• Gastroenterology 
• Immunology and Pathology
• Medicine - Peninsula
• Melbourne Sexual Health Centre
• Neuroscience
• National Trauma Research Institute

Monash researchers find key to blocking replication of COVID virus

Coronavirus (round gold objects) as seen under an
 electron microscope. Image: Tom Karagiannis

by Tania Ewing

Monash researchers have conducted extensive modelling of a new antiviral drug to show it has significant blocking ability against the virus that causes COVID-19.

To date, there is an absence of a vaccine and a lack of effective antiviral therapeutics against SARS-CoV-2, the virus causing COVID-19. Therefore, there is an intense interest in identifying compounds that may interact with key viral molecular targets, preventing infection or treating symptoms of the disease.

Dr Tom Karagiannis, from Monash University’s Central Clinical School, and his team recently published data in the Computational Biology Chemistry Journal, showing that a designer molecule called α-ketoamide blocks one of the key proteins needed by the SARS-CoV-2 virus to replicate.

Elective surgery patients to be screened for COVID-19

Prof Paul Myles in theatre

by Tania Ewing

A Monash University researcher warns, in an editorial in The Lancet, that countries aiming to reintroduce elective surgery should be prepared to balance the need for surgery over the risk of a compromised patient developing COVID-19 and dying.

Professor Paul Myles, from the Department of Anaesthesiology and Perioperative Medicine, Alfred Hospital and Monash University, has written the editorial to accompany a research paper from the University of Birmingham, which looked at more than 1100 patients across 24 countries who had surgery from the 1 January to 31 March this year. More that two thirds of these patients were diagnosed with coronavirus post-operatively. One in four of these patients were dead within 30 days of the surgery.

$2M MRFF grant win for reducing chronic kidney disease in Australia's Indigenous population

The MRFF Indigenous Health CKD team members L-R: CIA Prof Mark Cooper (Monash University), CIB Ms Kim Morey (SAHMRI), CIC Prof Paul Zimmet (MU), CID Mr Ricky Mentha (Baker Heart and Diabetes Institute), CIE Prof Karin Jandeleit-Dahm (MU), CIF Prof Assam El-Osta (MU), CIG Prof Stephen McDonald (SAHMRI)

Congratulations to Professor Mark Cooper, Department of Diabetes, on the Medical Research Future Fund (MRFF) funding award in the area of Indigenous Health research. The Monash University Diabetes researchers are collaborating with researchers at the South Australian Health and Medical Research Institute (SAHMRI) in South Australia on a project entitled "Reducing the burden of chronic kidney disease in the Indigenous population - the PROPHECY CKD study" (APP1200005) which has been awarded $1,995,895 across five years.