Awards for asthma, malaria, cancer studies
La Trobe University research into breastfeeding, muscle function, asthma, malaria and cancer treatment has received almost $3.2 million from the Federal Government in the latest National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) grants allocation.
Three of the five studies are by leading research teams in the biosciences.
Cancer
A group headed by Dr John Silke from the School of Molecular Sciences has gained $486,000 for its studies on the mechanism that leads to cell death, a relatively new field of research critical to developing next-generation cancer treatments.
It aims to identify genes that are more important to cancer cells than to normal cells in the body. The idea is to then develop drugs that specifically target those genes, thereby killing cancer cells while leaving normal cells – those less reliant on these genes – relatively unscathed.
‘This approach,’ says Dr Silke, ‘would represent a significant improvement over most existing radio and chemotherapies that target dividing cells irrespective of whether they are cancerous or normal.’
Muscle work
Professor Graham Lamb and colleagues from the Muscle Cell Research Group in the School of Life Sciences have been awarded $598,800 to further their work on the processes that make muscles contract. This has wide applications for health, exercise and disease.
With colleague Professor George Stephenson, Professor Lamb has overturned the widely-held theory that acidity, caused by a build-up of lactic acid, is a major cause of muscle fatigue. They discovered the opposite: acidity helps prevent muscle fatigue.
Malaria
Professor Leann Tilley’s team in the Department of Biochemistry has received $886,250 to probe the action of drugs to fight malaria, responsible for an estimated two million deaths annually.
With the malaria parasite developing resistance to existing anti-malarial drugs, the work is probing the molecular basis of drug action to help develop new drugs and therapies.
The other two studies are being carried out by researchers from the Faculty of Health Sciences.
Breastfeeding
Dr Lisa Amir, a Senior Research Fellow at Mother and Child Health Research, heads a project supported by $751,600 to determine the cause of ‘breast thrush’ in lactating women.
A qualified medical practitioner and lactation consultant who works in private practice and at the Royal Women’s Hospital, Dr Amir is a specialist in the role of Candida albicans in nipple and breast pain in lactating women which can lead to early cessation of breastfeeding if the condition is not appropriately treated.
Asthma
And $454,550 has been allocated to Dr Bircan Erbas’ team in the School of Public Health for research into the impact of outdoor aeroallergens in exacerbating asthma in children and adolescents.
Her research has shown that grass pollen has an increasing effect on asthma hospital admissions. She is now studying the problem using new data from Melbourne and other Australian cities and plans to develop models to accurately forecast next day pollen counts.