The Gretel and Gordon Bootes Medical Research and Education Foundation has donated $55,983 to fund five research projects proposed by researchers at John Curtin School of Medical Research.

Dianne Garner, Director of the Foundation, attended the School to announce and meet with the successful applicants and their collaborators on 20 July 2021.

The successful recipients and their projects are:

• Daniel Enosi Tuipulotu: “Killer peptides” – a silver bullet for the treatment of antibiotic-resistant bacteria
• Rebecca Buckland: Α-synuclein-induced immune activation: a potential cause for Parkinson’s disease?
• Navneet Singh: Targeting a cellular regulation pathway to treat latent HSV infection
• Anthony Newman: Engineering Cas9 gene editors to cure type-I Neurofibromatosis
• Pablo Acera Mateos: Dissecting the role of RNA modifications in onco-ribosomes to inform new anti-cancer therapies

L-R: Navneet Singh, Daniel Enosi Tuipulotu, Rebecca Buckland, Anthony Newman, Pablo Acera Mateos, Graham Mann
 

In the past few years, the Foundation has continued its support to researchers at the John Curtin School of Medical Research to assist with research.

The support is two-fold. On the one hand, the grant helps to make it possible for the researchers to put their ideas to the test.

“This grant will allow us to perform key experiments of our research,” said Pablo from the Eyras Group, who wrote his first scientific grant and succeeded.

“This is an immense aid in difficult and uncertain times when science is needed more than ever,” he remarked.

On the other hand, the grant program gives the emerging researchers an early taste of grant-writing—a critical communication skill for research scientists.

“As I understand it, PhD students aren’t generally expected to write grants for funding,” said Anthony, A PhD Student from the Burgio Group, “The Foundation grant was a great way for me to practice the art of grant-writing and gain some valuable career experience!”

“Communicating the research project in non-scientific, simple terms was a valuable experience for me,” echoed Navneet from Tscharke Group.

“Being the first successful grant, it is a boost to my career,” Navneet said.