National funding success for child health researchers

Researchers from Perth's Telethon Institute for Child Health Research have today been awarded $3.46 million in competitive grants and two early career fellowships from the Federal Government's National Health and Medical Research Council.

The funding will enable them to lead seven new research projects, focussed around respiratory health and diabetes.

Telethon Institute Director Professor Jonathan Carapetis said the funding success reflected the Institute's internationally-recognised expertise in these areas.

"We know that respiratory infections, asthma and allergy are among the major reasons that children are admitted to hospital and a key challenge in improving child health," Professor Carapetis said.

"The Telethon Institute has a commitment to research that makes a difference, and these research projects have great potential to reduce the prevalence and improve the quality of life for children affected by chronic conditions such as diabetes and asthma."

2013 Project Grants

Characterization of cellular inflammatory responses underlying acute viral bronchiolitis in infants
Chief Investigator A: Professor Pat Holt

The link between vitamin D deficiency and chronic lung disease is due to increased airway smooth muscle
Chief Investigator A: Associate Professor Graeme Zosky

Integrate, Identify, Intervene: Identifying opportunities for preventing respiratory infections in children through integrating population-based health, laboratory and immunisation data
Chief Investigator A: Dr Hannah Moore

Defective cell migration as a mechanism of dysregulated asthmatic airway repair
Chief Investigator A: Dr Anthony Kicic

Towards reducing the susceptibility of "high risk" infants to allergic asthma by therapeutic modulation of immunoregulatory functions in the pregnant mother
Chief Investigator A: Dr Deborah Strickland

A novel portable system for day and night closed loop automated insulin delivery in the patient with Type 1 Diabetes
Chief Investigator A: Professor Timothy Jones

Glycaemia-increasing effects of sprinting in type 1 diabetes: toward the validation of new clinical guidelines for hypoglycaemia prevention
Chief Investigator A: Professor Timothy Jones

Telethon Institute researchers are also Chief Investigators on an additional eight collaborative projects ranging from potential new therapies for autism to tracking long term outcomes for children born by IVF.

Early Career Fellowships were awarded to two of the Telethon Institute's outstanding young researchers, providing four years of funding for them to establish themselves as leading researchers in Western Australia.

They are clinical psychologist and mental health researcher Dr Monique Robinson and environmental health researcher Dr Gavin Pereira who is currently at Yale University.

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