Ramaciotti Awards and a new human systems biology centre

The recipients of the Ramaciotti Awards for biomedical research, worth over $2.2 million, have been announced.

Professor Douglas Hilton, Director of the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute for Medical Research and head of the Department of Medical Biology at the University of Melbourne, has been awarded the Ramaciotti Medal for Excellence and $50,000 grant for his discoveries in blood cell production.

The Centenary Institute’s Cytometry research program (cytometry by time of flight, CyTOF), led by Professor Barbara Fazekas de St Groth and Dr Adrian Smith in collaboration with Professor Nicholas King from University of Sydney, has received the $1 million Ramaciotti Biomedical Research Award.

Fazekas and colleagues have been investigating how regulatory T-cells modulate the immune system and prevent autoimmune diseases such as psoriasis, multiple sclerosis and inflammatory bowel disease. CyTOF mass spectrometry can test an individual cell for up to 100 different characteristics, allowing mass data to be computed simultaneously. Existing technology can track up to 15-20 molecules simultaneously. 

The technology will be housed in the new Ramaciotti Centre for Human Systems Biology, to be jointly set up by Centenary Institute and the University of Sydney in 2014.

Equipment and establishment grants of up to $75,000 each, totalling over $1.2 million, were also given to 17 recipients.

Trustee of the Clive and Vera Ramaciotti Foundations, Perpetual, was advised by a Scientific Advisory Committee led by Professor Derek Hart in deciding the grants.

Hart said selecting this year’s winners was like separating excellent from excellence.

“We see so many applications from bright young people doing wondrous work, it is hard not to worry about their prospects without more investment and facilitative programs such as Ramaciotti,” Professor Hart said.

“Medical research needs time, patience and adequate funding for discoveries to translate beyond the lab and into investment cycles, allowing for grants to make a real difference.”

The Clive and Vera Ramaciotti Foundations, established in 1970 to advance medical research in Australia, are collectively one of the largest private contributors to Australian biomedical research.

Vera Ramaciotti established the charitable trusts in 1970 with $6.7 million and, through the Ramaciotti Foundations, has enabled over $52.5 million to be granted to biomedical research, with another $52 million invested for future contributions.

The biannual $1 million Ramaciotti Biomedical Research Award was only open to NSW applicants this year. The next $1 million grant in 2015 will consider applications from all other states, excluding NSW, as per its alternating scope.