The brain is a complex maze but advances in neuroscience have helped researchers make remarkable progress to learn more about it in recent years.

Researchers at the Curtin Health Innovation Research Institute (CHIRI) are hopeful that better outcomes for patients with degenerative brain diseases such as Multiple sclerosis, Parkinson’s disease and Alzheimer’s disease are closer than ever.

The institute is recruiting participants for a study helping its researchers explore a promising research lead.

The study is assessing how people respond to meals containing commonly consumed dietary oils and the effectiveness of these oils to influence blood metabolites that positively regulate capillary vessel function. Read more…

Curtin University and CHIRI’s Associate Professor Nina Tirnitz-Parker and Director of the Harry Perkins Institute of Medical Research, UWA Professor Peter Leedman (pictured above right), will co-lead a collaborative team of researchers testing new treatments for primary liver cancer at a new
$10.8 million world-class research centre for Perth.

Announced this week, the centre will be established with a $5 million Cancer Research Trust grant and $5.8 million from Minderoo Foundation, Curtin University, The University of Western Australia, Harry Perkins Institute of Medical Research, the State Government and charitable organisations.

Carrying out the research will be the Western Australian Liver Cancer Collaborative, a team of more than 50 researchers from UWA, the Harry Perkins Institute of Medical Research and Curtin-CHIRI.

The team will apply the latest techniques to analyse patient tumours and test new treatments for malignant cancer starting in the liver, which is responsible for the third-most cancer related deaths worldwide.

The team includes Nina and her CHIRI colleagues Associate Professor Pieter Eichhorn, Professor Marco Falasca and Dr Rodrigo Carlessi (pictured above left), all from Curtin’s School of Pharmacy and Biomedical Sciences. Read more…

The Western Australian Cancer Single Cell Consortium has awarded funding of $240,000 to research led by Curtin Health Innovation Research Institute (CHIRI) researcher Dr Rodrigo Carlessi, with our Associate Professor Nina Tirnitz-Parker, to investigate how damaged liver cells can predict liver cancer prior to its development.

Rodrigo and Nina, from Curtin University’s School of Pharmacy and Biomedical Sciences, are part of a team of national experts working to decipher liver cancer at the single cell level, with a focus on the predicting role of the gene expression repertoire in the disease.

Rodrigo said the prevalence of chronic liver disease in humans is astonishingly high, with 1.5 billion patients globally. While only a fraction of these patients develop liver cancer, the prognosis for patients is poor and comes with high mortality rates.

Liver cancer is particularly common among older patients, highlighting the potential for disease intervention early on and its significance to CHIRI’s research focus on age-related diseases and disorders.

Read more…

A research collaboration led by Curtin Health Innovation Research Institute (CHIRI) Director Professor John Mamo will get to trial a new treatment for the most common form of Alzheimer’s disease with the announcement of $1.72 million in Federal Government funding to Curtin University.

The multi-disciplinary team has identified a novel drug, that can supress the production and leakage of a small molecule secreted into blood that inflames blood vessels of the brain and triggers Alzheimer’s disease.

With funding announced by the Minister for Health, the Honourable Greg Hunt, in the latest round of Medical Research Future Fund (MRFF) grants, the team will test the drug in humans with the disease.

A $150,000 contribution was provided by MSWA in 2019 to help develop the clinical trial concept, which will now be fully supported through the MRFF-Neurological grant. Read more…

A Curtin University research project led by CHIRI’s Associate Professor Pritinder Kaur, from the School of Pharmacy and Biomedical Sciences, will receive $737,689 in funding to develop a 3D printing-based system to revolutionise the treatment of skin trauma.

Supported by a Medical Research Future Fund (MRFF) Stem Cell Therapies 2020 grant, the research has the potential to speed up the healing process, reduce surgical and hospitalisation times and improve skin function for patients with skin wounds and scars.

Head of CHIRI’s Epithelial Stem Cell Biology Group, Pritinder and her team will develop and optimise a clinical prototype 3D bio-printing platform that uses stem cells to print skin tissue directly onto model wounds, as a precursor to skin repair in humans.

Pritinder will collaborate with seven key Australian investigators on the project, including WA burns surgeon Professor Fiona Wood and bio-printing and bioengineering expert Professor Gordon Wallace from the University of Wollongong. Read more…

A CHIRI-led research collaboration at Curtin University has found a new link between sub-concussion and motor dysfunction in a study designed to replicate the impact suffered by some sport players.

Recently published in the journal Frontiers in Neurology, the research is led by CHIRI’s Associate Professor Ryu Takechi, from Curtin’s School of Public Health, whose team worked in collaboration with Professor Melinda Fitzgerald’s team from the Perron/Sarich Neuroscience Institute and CHIRI, and several other Curtin researchers.

The multi-disciplinary team has developed a novel model to understand more about the potential effects of low-grade cranial impact on neuromotor function. Read more…

A Curtin University dog cancer treatment trial led by Curtin Health Innovation Research Institute’s Associate Professor Delia Nelson, with long-time involvement from Research Associate Stephen Proksch (both from Curtin’s School of Pharmacy and Biomedical Sciences), has tails and chins wagging, raising hopes for a more effective immunotherapy treatment of an aggressive cancer that is also common in humans.

Curtin University and West Australian cancer immunology company Selvax Pty Ltd is working in cooperation with Perth Veterinary Specialists to conduct the trial, which has resulted in significant cure rates of dogs with soft tissue sarcomas in the first group of ten dogs tested.

Thirty per cent of the dogs treated in the first group showed complete remission from their cancers and none of the dogs treated showed any side effects from the Selvax therapy.

Even more promising is that the dogs were tested at the lowest of three dose levels of the treatment.

Pictured above is Paddy, whose tumour completely disappeared following his treatment in the trial. Read more…

USA-based research repurposing non-profit, Cures Within Reach, has awarded Curtin University $89,000 in funding for a research project led by Curtin Health Innovation Research Institute (CHIRI) researchers working to formulate tissue-targeting therapeutics to treat the inner ear disorder Meniere’s disease.

With the disease increasingly common in older aged subjects, and in some people a consequence of drug therapies to treat other disorders, the research is being led by Dr Daniel Brown and Dr Hani Al-Salami from CHIRI’s Biotechnology and Drug Development Research Lab and Curtin’s School of Pharmacy and Biomedical Sciences. Read more…

Visualise this – you have 60 seconds to communicate your PhD thesis through a digital display and your topic is links between chronic stress and Alzheimer’s disease. Curtin Health Innovation Research Institute (CHIRI) PhD student Ayeisha Milligan Armstrong recently took up the challenge and earned herself third place and a $100 prize in the national 2020 Visualise Your Thesis Competition at Curtin.

A first-year student from the School of Pharmacy and Biomedical Sciences, Ayeisha used her 60-second presentation to highlight the prevalence of Alzheimer’s disease and the need for a medical research breakthrough to reduce the burden of the disease.

The focus of Ayeisha’s presentation then turned to one particular risk factor that is the subject of her PhD research – the possible link between chronic stress experienced in early or mid-life and Alzheimer’s disease. Read more…

Want to know more about the research we do at CHIRI? What better way to share it with you than by profiling some of our amazing team of researchers and their important work to find new preventions and treatments for a range of age-related diseases?

Our multi-disciplinary team works with a talented cohort of research students across four key areas of research, aimed at improving the quality of life of adult Australians through healthy ageing and reducing the burden of disease:

Vascular and metabolic disorders – including diabetes, liver diseases, heart disease, stroke, and bleeding and clotting disorders
Immune disorders – including changes in immune function with ageing, immunotherapy, treatment of infection, muscle repair, and tissue regeneration
Neurological disorders – including Alzheimer’s disease and other dementias, multiple sclerosis, Parkinson’s disease, epilepsy, and traumatic brain injuries
Cancer – including breast, pancreatic, prostate and liver cancers, and melanoma Read more…