Brainy boost for medical research

Twelve of Australia’s leading biomedical and health researchers have been awarded Australia Fellowships.

The fellowships, worth $4 million each over five years, are awarded by the National Health and Medical Research Council.

One of the winners is Professor George Paxinos of the Prince of Wales Medical Research Institute in Sydney, who will use the funding to continue his work on constructing brain maps, or atlases.

Paxinos is a prolific brain cartographer and is co-author of numerous atlases, including the well-known Mouse Brain in Stereotaxic Coordinates.

He said the funding will allow his team to produce the next generation of brain atlases by using genetic information as well as imaging.

He plans to produce a detailed atlas of the human cortex with the funding and to hire six post-doctoral fellows and two research assistants.

The other winners are:

• Professor Richard Harvey, Victor Chang Cardiac Research Institute, using systems biology to understand the development of the heart and heart diseases

• Professor Levon Khachigian, UNSW, to uncover new process that govern the expression of disease-causing genes, and to develop a new class of experimental drug that has the potential to treat a diverse range of health problems, from cancer and inflammation through to eye and heart disease.

• Professor Mark Cooper, Baker Heart Institute, to explore why people develop complications from diabetes, and the mechanisms responsible for those complications.

• Professor Anthony Jorm, ORYGEN Research Centre, to expand research and knowledge translation for mental disorders.

• Professor Nadia Rosenthal, Monash University, to discover ways to enhance our regenerative capacity in ageing and disease. This research has the potential to improve the health of our ageing population.

• Professor Terry Speed, Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research, who will move his research from the University of California, to use his fellowship to focus on cancer research.

• Professor John Lynch, University of South Australia, who will return from overseas to use his fellowship in Australia to conduct evidence-based population health research and its translation into effective policy, with a focus on early life interventions.

• Professor Paul Glasziou, Bond University, will return from the UK, to use his fellowship in Australia to undertake research to contribute new knowledge about the process and implementation of evidence-based medicine

• Professor Wayne Hall, University of Queensland, to explore the public health implications of genetic and neuroscience research on addictive disorders.

• Professor Rob Parton, University of Queensland, to focus on research into the cell surface and, in particular, to study the structure and function of caveolae.

• Professor Emma Whitelaw, Queensland Institute of Medical Research, to examine the complex gene-environment interactions which cause diseases such as obesity, heart disease, diabetes and cancer.