NHMRC kicks off new development funding scheme
Wednesday, 28 August, 2002
The National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) has awarded more than $5 million to 15 researchers seeking to commercialise their discoveries, in the first round of its new development grant scheme.
The grants allow researchers to take their ideas through the proof of concept stage.
One of the recipients of the awards, Prof Andy Choo, from the Murdoch Children's Research Institute and start-up company Ausgenics, praised the grant as a timely boost from the NHMRC.
He explained that the company was developing human artificial chromosomes (HACs) as a novel human gene therapy method.
"We have shown that we can make HACs of different sizes," Choo said. "Now we want to take the technology to the next proof of concept stage, splicing genes into the HAC and delivering them to cells to look at regulation and expression."
According to Choo, he realised the commercial potential of the project a few years ago. The fledgling company has recently come off an R&D Start grant and also received one of the second round Biotechnology Innovation Fund grants in March this year.
"It is good to know there is support for these programs from the government. We're taking good advantage of them," he said.
Now Choo's challenge is to find investors willing to put money into the venture. "It's a matter of finding the investors who have a taste for different stages of the project," he said.
Minister for Health and Ageing Senator Kay Patterson said the grants would help researchers develop their discoveries to a point where commercialisation was practical. "The funding will help bridge the gap from early research outcomes to product development, providing essential support for our best ideas," she said.
She noted that the research community had become more interested in keeping commercialisation of research in Australia rather than seeking opportunities overseas.
The full list of development grant recipients is:
Dr Chris Jackson, Assoc Prof Alan Cooper, Assoc Prof Lyn March University of Sydney Activated protein C to promote wound healing $390,000
Prof Barry Allen, Prof John Kearsley University of New South Wales A new therapy for the control of secondary breast cancer $330,000
Dr Kay Double, Dr Dominic Rowe University of New South Wales Development of a new diagnostic test for movement disorders $325,000
Prof David Morris University of New South Wales In-line radio frequency ablation to facilitate liver re-section $101,000
Prof Michael Humphreys, Dr Nancy Pachana, Assoc Prof Gerard Byrne, Prof Chris Del Mar, Assoc Prof Gerald Tehan University of Queensland Memory Screening in General Practice $300,000
Dr Ian Findlay, Assoc Prof Fung Yee Chan University of Queensland Improving first trimester prenatal diagnosis screening: rapid prenatal screening for everyone $225,000
Prof John Pettigrew University of Queensland Manic depression diagnosis $140,000
Dr Sarah Robertson, Dr Jeremy Thompson University of Adelaide GM-CSF and Human Embryo Development $480,000
Prof James Paton, Dr Adrienne Paton, Dr Renato Morona University of Adelaide Harmless bacteria for prevention of gut infections $450,000
Assoc Prof Keryn Williams, Dr Helen Brereton, Prof Douglas Coster, Prof Heddy Zola Flinders University Antibody fragments for treating eye diseases $435,000
Prof Andy Choo, Dr Richard Saffery, Dr Lee Wong Murdoch Children's Research Institute Development of a novel tool for delivering corrective genes in human gene therapy $495,000
Dr David Phillips, Prof David de Kretser, Dr William Sievert Monash University The use of follistatin in the treatment of liver disease $330,000
Dr Michael Lawrence-Brown, Dr Kurt Liffman, Dr James B Semmens University of Western Australia Understanding the fatigue forces in arterial blood flow with a focus on the implications for endoluminal technology $300,000
Assoc Prof Karin Eidne University of Western Australia Development of BRET technologies: tools for proteomics and drug discovery $375,000
Assoc Prof Yogesan Kanagasingam, Dr Mei-Ling Tay-Kearney, Dr Marc Tennant University of Western Australia Development of a multipurpose imaging device $430,000
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