The generous support of West Australians through Channel 7’s Telethon Trust will help support vital child health research at The Kids Research Institute Australia in 2023.
Donations from West Australians who dug deep in 2022 will fund cutting-edge research to tackle youth suicide rates, decode rare mitochondrial diseases and help to make kids less stressed and more comfortable when fasting before surgery.
2022 was another record-breaking year for Telethon, with more than $71 million raised to help sick and needy kids in Western Australia.
Associate Professor David Sommerfield, from The Kids Research Institute Australia’s Perioperative Medicine Team, Perth Children’s Hospital and The University of Western Australia, will lead a project to further develop a unique chewable tablet to help young children prepare for surgery more comfortably.
Fasting is usually required before surgical procedures for safety reasons, but for young children in particular this can prove extremely distressing.
Associate Professor Sommerfield and colleagues from PCH and The University of Western Australia have been awarded funding through Telethon to carry out pre-clinical trials to develop a product that gives children to make fasting easier.
“Our product is designed to not interfere with fasting guidelines in children while providing children with a comforting sensation of having consumed solid food.” Associate Professor Sommerfield said.
“Allowing fasting patients to eat these chewable tablets will help to relieve hunger and distress.
“An added advantage of this new product is that it does not have to be consumed with water.”
Associate Professor Sommerfield said the pleasant-tasting product is likely to lead to reduced pre-operative distress in children and less vomiting and nausea as well as, which will contribute to better outcomes post-surgery.
The Kids Research Institute Australia and National Medical Research Council (NHMRC) Emerging Leader Fellow, Dr Nicole Hill, will lead a team of experts from Murdoch University and UWA in partnership with the Department of Education, Anglicare WA, Lifeline WA, and NEAMI national to investigate and develop WA’s first evidence-informed blueprint to tackle “suicide contagion” and prevent suicide clusters in young people, their friends and families.
Dr Hill is one of Australia’s leading researchers investigating suicide clusters in young people, and said this research will help to develop a best-practice response to providing care to young people affected by a suicide.
“We know that for every suicide up to 130 people can be deeply affected,” she said.
“Those people are then at an increased risk of poor mental health as well as suicide themselves, and young people are particularly vulnerable.
“Thanks to the generous support of the Channel 7 Telethon Trust, we will develop a decision-making toolkit which can be used to drive the ongoing care and support given to people impacted by a suicide.”
Professor Aleksandra Filipovska will lead a project seeking to improve the diagnosis and treatment of mitochondrial disease – a rare but debilitating and potentially fatal disorder of the body’s cells.
The project will use sophisticated 3D reconstruction of cells affected by mitochondrial disease (MD), which will allow for faster, more accurate diagnosis for MD.
Professor Filipovska said there was an urgent need for better therapies for children.
“MD affects young infants and children and has devastating consequences that include failure to thrive, seizures, lactic acidosis, motor regression and cognitive impairment, liver dysfunction and heart problems,” she said.
“Often, diagnosis comes quite late so parents and families go through enormous stress and worry in their search for answers.
“As part of this project, we will also seek to develop new technologies that could become a world-first for treatments of MD in children.
The Kids Research Institute Australia Executive Director, Jonathan Carapetis, thanked the Channel 7 Telethon Trust for its ongoing support of medical research in WA.
All of our researchers at The Kids work tirelessly to improve the lives of West Australian kids and families, and we’re so grateful for the support of Telethon and the WA public as we work towards our mission of happy, healthy kids.
“We are so excited about these three exceptional research projects and the impact they will have in our community.”