Dr Emma De Jong, Dr Mary Abraham, Dr Aveni Haynes and Dr Amy Finlay-Jones
Children’s Diabetes Centre researchers at The Kids Research Institute Australia are among the big winners of prestigious Raine Medical Research Foundation Awards, announced last week.
Diabetes technology research lead and Perth Children’s Hospital paediatric endocrinologist Dr Mary Abraham was awarded a Clinician Research Fellowship, valued at $344,264, to investigate hybrid closed loop systems, a step towards an artificial pancreas, in adolescents with sub-optimal blood glucose control.
Dr Aveni Haynes, who leads the Centre’s epidemiology research, received a Raine Priming Grant, valued at $168,136, for her project which aims to inform type 1 diabetes prevention strategies by identifying early elevated blood glucose levels in children at risk.
Dr Haynes also won the Strachan Memorial Prize and medallion, valued at $5000, which is awarded to an early-career clinical researcher with the most outstanding scientific paper that may translate into better health outcomes.
In addition, Canadian diabetes researcher Professor Michael Riddell, from York University in Toronto, will visit the Centre in 2020 after he was awarded a Visiting Professor Award, valued at $11,400.
Asthma, mental health and cancer research also received a boost as follows:
- Respiratory team’s Dr Emma De Jong, who was awarded a Raine Priming Grant, valued at $215,000, for predicting asthma disease trajectories through systems-level analyses of immune memory.
- Dr Amy Finlay-Jones, from the mental health team, who won a Brightspark Research Collaboration Award, valued at $29,433.42, for collaborating with Brain and Body Lab (BABLab), University of California.
- The Kids Cancer Centre researcher Dr Rachael Zemek was awarded the Raine Research Prize, valued at $5000, for her publication, Sensitization to immune checkpoint blockade through activation of a STAT1/NK axis in the tumor microenvironment