Congratulations to Curtin University PhD student Jessica Murray, who has been awarded a prestigious Forrest Research Foundation Scholarship and chosen to use it to undertake important melanoma research with us at CHIRI.

Jessica, who last year completed her Honours under the supervision of CHIRI cancer and immunology researchers Dr Danielle Dye and Professor Deirdre Coombe, will again join the team, exploring the underlying molecular interactions involved in an alternative form of melanoma spreading in the body. Read more…

CHIRI-led research recently published in the prestigious Journal of Biological Chemistry examined a specialised channel in the human body that transports proteins inside cells, to provide important insights for our research into age-associated diseases, including cancer.

The research was carried out in our labs by lead author CHIRI’s Dr Carl Mousley, a molecular cell biologist, in collaboration with researchers from CHIRI, Curtin University, Flinders University and the University of Queensland. CHIRI co-authors are Dr Rob Steuart, and PhD students Christopher Witham, Kofi Stevens, Lamprini Baklous and Amy Black who are co-supervised by Carl and Rob. Read more…

This year, the 24th Human Genome Meeting HGM2020 will be held in Perth and Curtin Health Innovation Research Institute (CHIRI) researchers Julian Heng, Jessica Gaff and Shelley Waters will be celebrating months of hard work to help get the show on the road as members of the conference local organising committees.

Julian is helping to organise the main conference, which will be held at the Perth Convention and Exhibition Centre on 5-8 April, and is proudly supported by CHIRI. Read more…

Curtin Health Innovation Research Institute (CHIRI) bio-nanotechnology researcher Dr Hani Al-Salami has two international research projects ‘on the horizon’, with the European Union (EU) providing funds totalling $5.5 million (€3.332 million) over five years, through the EU-Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Program.

The grants are designed to encourages world-class science by removing barriers to knowledge, research and innovation thorough research partnerships, and focusing on inter-disciplinary collaboration of world-leading scientists and Hani is the lead Australian scientific advisor and co-investigator on both projects.

One project will focus on developing nanosensors that can rapidly analyse saliva to understand metabolic responses to drugs and treatments. The second project is designed to develop drug delivery systems including through patch technologies and electronic implants. Both projects require multidisciplinary teams including in medicine, physics and engineering.

The EU’s funding for these particular projects is through a European Research Area Chairs and RISE grants, which supports research programs, infrastructure and building capacity to integrate its scientific resources and support cooperation in the fields of medical, environmental, and socioeconomic research. Read more…

The Curtin Health Innovation Research Institute (CHIRI) wishes all of our CHIRI-associated PhD, Masters and Honours students, and members of the wider CHIRI community who are graduating this week, our warmest congratulations on their achievement.

As a university-based institute, CHIRI is fortunate to have access to an amazing cohort of talented students from multiple disciplines, who contribute so much to our research.

With our institute’s focus on researching new preventions and treatments for age-associated diseases, we are taking this opportunity to profile a few of this week’s PhD graduates.

The graduation ceremony for students from Curtin’s School of Pharmacy and Biomedical Medical Sciences will be celebrated on Tuesday 11 February, and the schools of Public Health and Molecular and Life Sciences on Thursday, 13 February.

Thanks to all CHIRI students for their commitment and contribution to CHIRI’s mission. We wish them every success – wherever their post-graduation research journey takes them. Read more…

The Curtin Health Innovation Research Institute (CHIRI) is celebrating a successful bid for Australian Research Council (ARC) facilities funding with its Director Professor John Mamo leading a team of WA-based researchers receiving $620,000 to establish the state’s only super-rapid speed confocal microscopy facility at Curtin University.

The funding, provided under the ARC’s Linkage Infrastructure, Equipment and Facilities (LIEF) 2020 scheme, will provide health, environmental biology and agriculture researchers with access to contemporary, state-of-the-art microscopy equipment. This includes access to the clearest 3D-pictures to monitor fast biological processes inside living cells and to scan large areas of tissues with an unprecedented degree of detail.

“This is an exciting development for CHIRI and for researchers across WA who will soon benefit from having access to these world-class technologies right here in our own state,” Professor Mamo said. Read more…

Two Curtin Health Innovation Research Institute (CHIRI) researchers are part of a high-performing, multi-disciplinary research team working together over the next five years to identify potential new preventions for lung disease.

CHIRI’s Professor Fergal O’Gara is a Chief Investigator and Dr Jose Caparros-Martin an Associate Investigator on the project, which will receive a $5 million Synergy Grant from the Australian Government’s National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) over five years.

The team is among the first cohort of Synergy Grant recipients provided with funds to team up and answer major questions that cannot be answered by a single investigator.

Coordinated by Professor Stephen Stick from Telethon Kids Institute (TKI), the team also includes Professor Sarath Ranganathan (Murdoch Children’s Research Institute), Professor Richard Boucher (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, USA), Associate Professor Rabindra Tirouvanziam (Emory University); Professor Elaine Holmes (Australian National Phenome Centre) and Dr Yuliya Karpievitch (TKI). Read more…

PhD student Tahlia Bastholm and her co-supervisor Dr Joshua Ramsay have received a handy funding boost from the Curtin Health Innovation Research Institute to take their collaborative research abroad.

CHIRI will provide a small grant to support Tahlia’s travel to the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom to collect additional data for their research, learn a new experimental method and further strengthen their ties with their UK collaborators.

The team is studying how bacteria communicate with each other through chemical signalling called quorum sensing.

“This project has already allowed us to build a strong collaborative network with research groups at Murdoch University, The University of Western Australia, the University of Otago in New Zealand, and the University of Nottingham in the UK,” Tahlia said.

“Funds from the CHIRI-Hands-Up-Support Scheme will allow us to further investigate the roles of this particular quorum sensing system in bacteria, and strengthen collaboration with yet another prestigious research institute.” Read more…

Curtin University researchers have developed tiny capsules that are able to effectively target the liver and pancreas reducing the inflammatory effects of type two diabetes.

The research, published in the Nature journal, Scientific Reports, explored whether the tiny capsules, developed using bio-nanotechnologies and filled with a combination of human-based bile acids and the lipid-lowering drug Probucol, could target the inflammatory effects of diabetes in pre-clinical models over a six-month period. Read more…

Congratulations to Curtin Health Innovation Research Institute’s (CHIRI) Dr Connie Jackaman, on her election as Honorary Secretary of the Australian and New Zealand Society for Immunology (ASI) and part of the ASI Executive team.

Connie’s appointment was announced at ASI’s annual general meeting in Adelaide this month, where CHIRI PhD student Lelinh Duong won the prize for Best Overall Poster and the BD Communication Prize.

Connie herself received a prestigious ASI Gordon Ada International Travel Award worth $3,000 to travel to the US next year to present at the JAIN Foundation meeting in March 2020 and meet with US collaborators working in the ageing field of research.

Connie was also on the winning team for the annual Lafferty debate with this year’s topic being “Of mice and men: Do mice models represent human disease?”. Connie’s team, which debated against the topic, also included Professor Colby Zaph from Monash University, VIC and Dr Johannes Mayer from the Malaghan Institute, Wellington, New Zealand. Their opposition, the ‘For’ team, included Professor Gabrielle Belz from Walter and Eliza Hall Institute, VIC, Professor Phil Hansbro from Centenary Institute NSW and Cameron Bastow from University of South Australia. During her presentation, Connie screened videos including some of her CHIRI colleagues Dr Carl Mousley, Dr Rob Steuart and Stephen Proksch – which were a highlight of the debate. Read more…