Grants Awarded

MISCL researchers awarded over $5 million in Government funding

In the latest round of National Health and Medical Research Council and Australian Research Council funding, MISCL secured major successes. MISCL received three NHMRC project grants ($1.4 mill) a LIEF grant ($350,000) for equipment, two ARC grants ($625,000) and a major five year programme grant ($2.9 mill), jointly funded by the NHMRC and the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation.

NHMRC funding:

Professor Graham Jenkin and Alan Trounson in collaboration with Dr Ursula Manelpillai and Prof Euan Wallace (both Dept of Obs & Gynae) were awarded $335,500, to investigate whether stem cells isolated from tissue that surrounds the baby (amnion stem cells) might aid in the reducing lung fibrosis.

Professor Graham Jenkin in collaboration with researchers from Department of Physiology, Associate Professor Helena Parkington, Professor Euan Wallace and Dr Richard Lang (Dept of Physiology and Obs & Gynae) obtained $563,625 so they can further understand the role of particular cells in controlling women’s contractions whilst in labour.

Dr Ed Stanley and Associate Professor Andrew Elefanty received $518,250 so they can functionally characterise insulin producing pancreatic cells derived from embryonic stem cells, which will be critical as a model to derive similar cells for transplant therapies to alleviate symptoms of patients with Juvenile type 1 diabetes.

ARC funding:

From the ARC, Professor Alan Trounson in collaboration with scientists at the Department of Engineering, Professor Mark Thompson and Dr George Thouas, were awarded $262,000 to develop a bioreactor for stem cell growth.

A unique project by Professor Alan Trounson and Professor Claude Bernard, that utilises the Australian synchrotron housed at Monash University to develop novel markers of stem cells as well as of oocyte growth was funded $625,000. This is in collaboration with Dr Brian Wood.

$350,000 from the Linkage Institution Equipment Fund (LIEF) was awarded to Professor Alan Trounson in collaboration with a number of Monash University Departments as well as the Victorian Infectious Diseases Health Laboratories. This money will aid in establishing new ways to monitor signals emitted from our body’s cells and how they may change when we are stressed or contract a disease.

JDRF/NHMRC funding:

The NHMRC and JDRF jointly sponsored $2.9 million for a Programme grant by Professor Ed Stanley and Professor Andrew Elefanty as well as Professor Len Harrison at the Walter Eliza Hall Institute to progress the development of alternative cell therapies for patients with Juvenile Type 1 Diabetes.

$5 million NHMRC funding to use stem cells for immune tolerance and tissue repair

The NHMRC awarded $5 million to Professors Richard Boyd, Claude Bernard, BanHock Toh and Alan Trounson for a NHMRC Programme grant which will use stem cells as a Trojan horse, to seek out the bodies ‘rogue’ immune cells that in certain autoimmune diseases such as autoimmune gastritis, multiple sclerosis and diabetes attack organs, instead of doing the job it ought, which is protecting the body from outside attacks. As rejection of organ transplants arise in a similar way to auto-immune diseases, this approach may help with acceptance of foreign organ grafts. Otherwise people who suffer such diseases or are recipients of organ transplants are administered drugs that suppress the immune system, often with serious side effects.

Grant title: ‘Innovative stem cell-based strategies to establish immune tolerance and tissue repair’
Principal Investigators: Richard L. Boyd, Alan Trounson, Claude Bernard, Ban-Hock Toh
Associate Investigators: Ann Chidgey, Frank Alderuccio
$5,233,402 from 2007 to 2011.