NHMRC - Centres of clinical research excellence

2006 Round

The University of Sydney has received more than $46 million for health and medical research in the latest round of funding from the NHMRC.

Professor Simpson will be conducting a study that promises to resolve the long-standing and fiercely argued debate about which diets work and why. The study is in conjunction with Jennie Brand-Miller and Ian Caterson, both professors of human nutrition, and Associate Professor Arthur Conigrave from the School of Molecular and Microbial Biosciences. It aims to demonstrate that humans keep eating until they have satisfied their appetite for protein.

Other projects to receive funding include a study by perinatal health expert Dr Christine Roberts, which will investigate whether the place of someone's birth influences a healthy start to life.

Associate Professor Jonathon Craig and Professor Sandra Eades both received close to $2.5 million for separate research projects into indigenous health.

An investigation by Professor Phyllis Butow from psychology into the psychosocial predictors of developing breast cancer in women from high-risk breast cancer families received $1,020,600.

Other research areas to receive funding included research into sleep apnoea, lower back pain, diabetes and anorexia nervosa.

2005 Round

In 2005 two more of our research institutions were designated centres of clinical research excellence. They receive a total of $4 million over five years from the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC).

• Respiratory and Sleep Medicine
  A/Professor Ronald Grunstein (USyd at RPAH)
  The CCRE will enhance Australia’s international research reputation in clinical respiratory and sleep medicine by enhancing links between hospital-based investigators. This will foster development of new clinical researchers in these fields. Major research projects will include reducing side effects of asthma therapy in the elderly, better and cheaper ways of diagnosing disorders such as sleep apnea and blood clots in the lung, keeping patients with chronic lung diseases out of hospital and avoiding accidents due to lack of sleep.
• Interdisciplinary clinical and health ethics research and training to improve outcomes in immunosuppressed haematology patients
  Professor Tania Sorrell (USyd at Westmead)
  The Centre will improve Australia’s capacity to combat and prevent life-threatening infections, and reduce adverse social outcomes, in high-risk children and adults with heavily suppressed immune systems. Infections cause most preventable disease and death in these patients. We will establish multidisciplinary training programmes in clinical and ethics research and build on our expertise in infectious diseases and microbiology, diagnostics, haematology, immunisation, health informatics and bioethics to improve patient outcomes. These outcomes will be translatable to other high-risk patients such as those with cancer and the critically ill.

2003 Round

This wo of our research institutions were designated centres of clinical research excellence in 2005. They receive a total of $4 million over five years from the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC).

• The Centre of Clinical Research Excellence to Improve Outcomes in Chronic Liver Disease will be based jointly at the Storr Liver Unit at Westmead Hospital and the AW Morrow Department of Gastroenterology and Liver Centre at Royal Prince Alfred Hospital.
• The centre aims to develop non-invasive ways to identify people with progressive liver disease, and will assess whether lifestyle adjustments such as diet and exercise improve liver injury and fibrosis progression.
• The Centre of Clinical Research Excellence in Renal Medicine aims to answer research questions such as whether screening for early renal disease prevents kidney failure, whether renal disease in Aboriginal people begins in early childhood, and what causes transplanted kidneys to fail.