Research Teams

The Aboriginal Health and Wellbeing Team follows an holistic definition of Aboriginal Health which means that health is not just the physical wellbeing of an individual but includes the social, emotional and cultural wellbeing of the whole community.

The Adolescent Health and Wellbeing team works in partnership with young people to understand their priority needs and the best ways to address these. This includes informing evidence-based policies and co-designing accessible and responsive health services.

The Airway Epithelial Research Team is investigating the role of the epithelium in the development of airway diseases including asthma, cystic fibrosis and lung transplant rejection.

The Kids' autism research takes place at CliniKids, a centre that integrates world-class research with a clinical service for children with developmental delay and/or autism and their families. Our team of researchers work in partnership with clinicians to give the community access to the world's best evidence-based therapies.

The Bacterial Respiratory Infectious Disease Group (BRIDG) has a major focus ear and lung disease involving Streptococcus pneumoniae and Haemophilus influenzae.

We strive for a future where no child will die from brain cancer because we have developed new therapies that will cure their disease.

Our team aims to optimise lung health early in life to ensure the best possible health outcomes later in life.

Improving the lives of children with a disability and their families sits at the core of our team.

Our Child Physical Activity, Health and Development team focuses on improving children’s physical activity levels, health and development. We work to uncover the best environments, policies and programs to facilitate physically active lifestyles for lifelong health and wellbeing.

The Children's Lung Health Team investigates lung growth and development through infancy, childhood, adolescence and early adulthood, in health and in chronic lung disease, and the impact of preterm birth on lung health outcomes.

The Children’s Respiratory Science group’s research has an emphasis on mechanisms of respiratory health in children including those that predict and underpin acute viral respiratory infections in children.

The Chronobiology team works to understand the factors that contribute to poor lung and heart function in newborn infants and find ways to prevent heart and lung disease.

Epigenomic research at Telethon Kids explores the links between childhood disease and the molecular hallmarks of epigenetic control.

The aim of the Computational Biology team is to understand how individual bases in our genome predispose, alter and interact in normal and disease contexts.

The Children's Diabetes Centre's research into Type 1 diabetes, childhood onset Type 2 diabetes and obesity aims to improve the lives of children and adolescents affected by these conditions.

The Ear Health team's vision is all children start primary school with good hearing.

The Early Neurodevelopment and Mental Health team is focused on preventing childhood mental illness and optimising children’s development and wellbeing in the first years of their life. We are interested in understanding and identifying the factors that contribute to difficulties in mental health and development, as well as developing cost-effective prevention and early intervention approaches for addressing developmental needs and promoting resilience.

The Early Years Systems Evidence (EYSE) team specialises in working in partnership with governments and service providers, with a distinct focus on improving the life chances of children in Australia.

The Geospatial and Tuberculosis (GeoTB) team led by Kefyalew Alene focuses on designing an innovative approach for improving the efficiency and effectiveness of public health interventions to help control and ultimately eliminate tuberculosis in high-burden countries.

Our Geospatial Health and Development Team uses cutting-edge technologies to better understand how and why the health and wellbeing of children varies from place to place. We develop innovative geospatial methods that can harness large, complex datasets to pinpoint hotspots of elevated risk, evaluate change through time, and explore underlying drivers.

The Healing Kids, Healing Families team at The Kids Research Institute Australia strives to improve child and family mental health and wellbeing, especially after experiencing trauma or adversity.

Our aim is for all kids to have healthy skin. We work with communities to reduce the burden of Strep A skin sores and sore throats to prevent rheumatic fever.

The Human Development and Community Wellbeing Team conducts research across the lifespan from conception, childhood, and youth to adulthood and the social determinants that impact and influence outcomes. The team’s focus is on the broader life course of individuals and communities within the family, school, and online environments, and includes economic evaluation of programs and outcomes.

By investigating the way that breastmilk guides children’s immune trajectory, we provide evidence-based recommendations for the development of happy healthy kids

The Indigenous Genomics Group aims to build Indigenous leadership in genomic and data sciences, precision health, and ethics to improve health equity and the wellbeing of Indigenous people, families and communities.

The Infectious Disease Implementation Research Team is a multi-disciplinary group researching the best way to implement infectious disease prevention and treatment strategies to improve the wellbeing of children and teenagers.

The Infectious Disease Ecology and Modelling team led by Professor Nick Golding, combines mathematical and statistical modelling, ecology, and public health to address malaria and other infectious and vector-borne diseases. The team uses modelling and maps to measure the risk posed by some of the world’s most important and neglected diseases – including malaria, Japanese Encephalitis Virus and Covid-19 – and provide rapid modelling analyses to policy makers.

Our team’s vision is to reduce the burden of infectious diseases in children and their families through comprehensive approaches to understanding the burden of disease, developing and optimising diagnosis and treatment strategies and evaluating and informing current and future prevention programs.

The Intervention and Infectious Disease Modelling group informs development and implementation of drugs, medical treatments and non-medical interventions to effectively tackle disease. They build mathematical models of diseases, designed to take into account the complex constellation of interactions between pathogens, humans, diseases, the environment and entire healthcare systems.

Kids Rehab WA is an integrated team of clinicians and researchers who deliver and research therapies for children with acquired or congenital neurological impairments, leading to improved outcomes for children and their families.

The main aim of our Leukaemia Translational Research Team is to test innovative therapeutic approaches, with a focus on clinical translation of this knowledge, to improve the outcomes of children suffering from leukaemia.

Mitochondrial diseases are devastating disorders for which there are no cures or effective treatments. Our project will focus on the prevention of mitochondrial diseases and discovery of effective cures.

Preterm babies have a heightened risk of infection as their immune system is not mature. The Neonatal Health Team is exploring new ways to diagnose, prevent and treat infections in WA's smallest patients .

The vision of the Nutrition in Early Life team is to work together with the community to produce quality research, for improving our knowledge of how a mother’s diet during pregnancy and breastfeeding can improve both her and her child’s health.

The ORIGINS Team is studying early environments and parental physical health and genetics to uncover when and why non-communicable diseases (NCDs) develop.

The P4 Respiratory Health for Kids Team is a multi-disciplinary group with skills in clinical medicine, physiology, psychology, and in cellular and molecular biology, that are committed to improving the lives of children with respiratory diseases and their families.

The vision of the Perioperative Medicine Team is to make discoveries that will improve children’s perioperative care and lead to global practice change.

The Pregnancy and Early Life Immunology team's overall research vision is targeted towards understanding immunological development during early life.

PAHL researchers use their expertise in motivation, behaviour change, resilience, communication, teamwork, confidence, and leadership to develop programs and services that improve people’s physical and mental health.

The Respiratory Environmental Health team conducts research in early life determinants of lung growth and development, respiratory environmental health, and mechanisms of airway dysfunction in asthma and other respiratory disease.

We think all kids with Sarcoma should be able to lead happy, healthy lives! To achieve this, we aim to discover and develop safer and more effective treatments by doing inventive and rigorous research. We focus on addressing high relapse rates using a combination of unique pre-clinical models, patient samples and systems immunology.

The Strep A & ARF Therapeutics research team are working to accelerate research and clinical trials to improve penicillin formulation and treatment methods, to end RHD.

The Strep A Pathogenesis and Diagnostics team aims to understand key aspects of how Strep A causes different infections and diseases and use this information to develop improved ways to diagnose, treat and prevent these infections and diseases.

The Strep A Translation team aim to understand the epidemiology of Strep A infections in Australia and the world. Alongside this, they explore the implementation of endgame recommendations, health economics and new horizons.

The Strep A Vaccines research team is primarily focused on the Australian Strep A Vaccine Initiative (ASAVI) program of work funded by a $35 million grant from the Australian Government to accelerate the development of a Strep A vaccine (augmented by two multi-million-dollar philanthropic grants).

The research of the Translational Genetics team is focussed on providing molecular analysis of genetic variants (gene mutations), to better inform the early and accurate diagnosis of children living with genetic and rare diseases.

The Translational Genomics in Leukaemia team is focused on identifying the causes of leukaemia, with the goal of developing new targeted treatments to improve quality of care and long-term survival for all children with leukaemia.

The mission of the Vaccine Trials Group is to improve the health of the community through immunisation and the prevention of infectious diseases.

The Youth Mental Health team's mission to improve the mental health of young people in Western Australia and beyond.