The National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) has awarded six Ideas Grants to researchers at the John Curtin School of Medical Research to continue their crucial work on understanding vaccine design, cancer and retinal degeneration.

The NHMRC provides funding for health and medical research through a competitive, peer-reviewed grant system, with Ideas Grants providing researchers up to four years’ of funding.

In addition to the Ideas Grants, Professor Carola Vinuesa has been awarded an Investigator Grant for her research on treatments for autoimmunity. This funding will support Professor Vinuesa’s work for a further five years.  

Professor Graham Mann, Director of JCSMR, congratulates the researchers who received funding from the NHMRC.

“It has never been more challenging to succeed at this highest level of competition in the Australian funding environment – and this year was beyond exceptionally difficult.”

“We are very proud of these achievements and we acknowledge the outstanding efforts involved by these investigators and their teams, and by all our researchers who applied this year to NHMRC.”

Associate Professor Ian Cockburn (Group Leader – Malaria Immunology)

Title: Jekyll and Hyde: atypical B cells in immunisation, infection and autoimmunity

Professor Elizabeth Gardiner (Head of the ACRF Department of Cancer Biology and Therapeutics)

Title: New ways to evaluate platelet function

Professor Ross Hannan (Group Leader – Cancer Therapeutics)

Title: Exploring non-canonical roles for the ribosomal RNA genes critical for malignant transformation and cell fate

Professor Si Ming Man (Group Leader - Innate Immunity and Inflammasomes)

Title: Inflammasome sensors and immune protection against tumorigenesis

Associate Professor Riccardo Natoli (Group Leader – Clear Vision Research Lab)

Title: Investigating microRNAs as key regulators in a novel communication pathway driving retinal degeneration

Professor David Tscharke (Head of the Department of Immunology and Infectious Disease)

Title: Targeting miRNA biogenesis to treat herpes simplex virus latency