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Research

The emergence of multi-drug resistant (MDR) bacteria is recognised today as one of the greatest challenges to public health. As traditional antimicrobials are becoming ineffective and research into new antibiotics is diminishing, a number of alternative treatments for MDR bacteria have been receiving greater attention. Bacteriophage therapies are being revisited and present a promising opportunity to reduce the burden of bacterial infection in this post-antibiotic era.

Research

The airway epithelium of children with wheeze is characterized by defective repair that contributes to disease pathobiology. Dysregulation of developmental processes controlled by Notch has been identified in chronic asthma. However, its role in airway epithelial cells of young children with wheeze, particularly during repair, is yet to be determined.

Research

ATP Binding Cassette Subfamily A Member 3 (ABCA-3) is a lipid transporter protein highly expressed in type-II alveolar (AT-II) cells. Mutations in ABCA3 can result in severe respiratory disease in infants and children. To study ABCA-3 deficiency in vitro, primary AT-II cells would be the cell culture of choice although sample accessibility is limited. Our aim was to investigate the suitability of primary nasal epithelial cells, as a surrogate culture model for AT-II cells, to study ABCA-3 deficiency.

Research

The link between respiratory and vascular health is well documented in adult populations. Impaired lung function is consistently associated with thicker arteries and higher incidence of cardiovascular disease. However, there are limited data on this relationship in young children and the studies that exist have focussed on populations at high risk of cardiorespiratory morbidity.

Research

Differential cell counts is a challenging task when applying computer vision algorithms to pathology. Existing approaches to train cell recognition require high availability of multi-class segmentation and/or bounding box annotations and suffer in performance when objects are tightly clustered.

Research

Western societal norms have long been constrained by binary and exclusionary perspectives on matters such as infertility, contraception, sexual health, sexuality, and gender. These viewpoints have shaped research and knowledge frameworks for decades and led to an inaccurate and incomplete reproductive biology curriculum. To combat these deficiencies in reproductive systems-related education, our teaching team undertook a gradual transformation of unit content from 2018 to 2023, aiming to better reflect real diversity in human reproductive biology.

Research

From the results of well-performed population health studies, we now have excellent data demonstrating that deficits in adult lung function may be present early in life, possibly as a result of developmental disorders, incurring a lifelong risk of obstructive airway diseases such as asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. 

Research

Preterm infants have immature control of breathing and impaired pulmonary gas exchange. We hypothesized that infants with bronchopulmonary dysplasia (BPD) have a blunted ventilatory response and peripheral oxygen saturation (SpO2 ) instability during a hypoxic challenge.

We've compiled a number of helpful links to phage resources in Australia and beyond.

The Scientific Advisory Committee's (SAC) role is to provide scientific direction and to ensure the objectives of WAERP are reflected in the research performed; SAC forms part of our governance structure.