Healthy pack leaders

13 July 2016

The NHMRC has honoured 17 Australian health and medical researchers at its tenth annual Research Excellence Awards.

The winners across several categories, which were selected from more than 6,000 applications the NHMRC received in 2015, include:

• Associate Professor Gail Garvey, Menzies School of Health Research - won the Rising Star Award, honouring the top ranked Indigenous researcher in the Early Career Fellowship category, for research that focusses on supportive care needs, quality of life, and patterns of care for Indigenous cancer patients;
• Dr Robert Commons; Menzies School of Health Research - won the Gustav Nossal Award, given to the highest ranked NHMRC Postgraduate Scholarship applicant in the field of medical and dental research, for research that examines the risks and benefits of primaquine as a cure for vivax malaria;
• Professor Justin Cooper-White, University of Queensland - won the Marshall and Warren Award honouring the most highly innovative and potentially transformative NHMRC Project Grant application, for research that remodels ischemic adult heart tissue into functional heart tissue for full functional recovery of damaged heart tissue;
• Professor Peter Currie, Monash University - won the Project Grant category for investigating muscle stem cell action in injury and disease by researching how the small fresh water zebrafish is able to build and regenerate skeletal muscle;
• Professor Stephen Davis, University of Melbourne - won the NHMRC Program Grant category for investigating acute stroke, stroke recovery and optimisation of stroke therapies in Australia;
• Professor Kirill Alexandrov, University of Queensland - won the Development Grants category for the use of protein engineering to create protein molecules that produce electricity when they encounter a particular molecule or a clinical biomarker.
• Professor Jane Visvade, Walther and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research - won the Elizabeth Blackburn Fellowships Biomedical category, for aiming to provide insights into cellular and molecular aberrations underlying breast cancer.
• Professor Robyn Guymer, Centre for Eye Research Australia - won the Elizabeth Blackburn Fellowships Clinical category, for investigating disease pathogenesis and the basic mechanisms underlying age-related macular degeneration;
• Professor Billie Giles-Corti, University of Melbourne - won the Elizabeth Blackburn Fellowships Public Health category for creating a platform of (inter)national urban planning and health research to inform health-promoting urban and transport planning that supports healthier and more liveable cities;
• Associate Professor Alex Hewitt, University of Tasmania - won the NHMRC's Practitioner Fellowship category, for using patient-specific stem cell lines and emerging gene-editing techniques to understand the precise molecular mechanisms leading to blinding disease;
• Professor Stephen Nicholls, South Australian Health and Medical Research Institute - won the NHMRC Research Fellowship category, for identifying effective approaches to lower modifiable risk of heart disease in the community;
• Dr Joseph Powell, University of Queensland - won the Career Development Fellowship (Level 1) Biomedical category, for using applied computational genomics approaches to investigate how DNA changes result in altered gene expression and how this can affect disease susceptibility;
• Associate Professor Jean Yang, University of Sydney - won the Biomedical Career Development Fellowship (Level 2) Biomedical category, for developing bioinformatics solutions that deliver more accurate assessment of prognosis of disease and better prediction of response to drug therapy;
• Associate Professor Bruce Campbell, University of Melbourne - won the Clinical Career Development Fellowship (Level 1) category, for advancing brain imaging and reperfusion therapies in stroke patients;
• Dr Kim Delbaere, Neuroscience Research Australia - won the Career Development Fellowship (Level 2) Industry category, for using technology towards effective self-management of fall risk in older adults;
• Associate Professor Anne Tiedemann, University of Sydney - won the Career Development Fellowship (Level 1) Population Health category, for developing exercise-based strategies to prevent falls and promote healthy ageing; and
• Associate Professor Felice Jacka, Deakin University - won the Career Development Fellowship (Level 2) Population Health category, for developing new, evidence-based prevention and treatment strategies for mental disorders, based on dietary modification;