The National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) has awarded two Monash University researchers $17.5 million as part of its 2010 Research Program Grants scheme.

The scheme provides support for teams of researchers to pursue broadly based collaborative research activity. The support provided for successful applicants is for the research team to support the team's broad research theme.

Professor Trevor Lithgow from the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, and Associate Professor Stuart Hooper from the Department of Physiology in the Faculty of Medicine, Nursing and Health Sciences, and their research teams have attracted $8.9 million and $8.6 million respectively.

Senior Deputy-Vice Chancellor and Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Research) Professor Edwina Cornish said she was extremely proud of the outcome.

"Congratulations to Professor Lithgow, Associate Professor Hooper and their teams for their success in this latest funding round," Professor Cornish said.

"This level of funding is a direct endorsement from the National Health and Medical Research Council of the quality of research taking place here at Monash."

Professor Lithgow will collaborate with researchers from the University of Melbourne, the University of Queensland, the Sanger Institute in the UK and The National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases in the United States to investigate the strategies used by pathogenic bacteria to cause human diseases. The research will focus on how bacteria initiate infections, how they invade, cause cell and tissue damage, and respond to their human host.

It will also examine how the host's innate immune system interacts with these bacteria. The results will provide new insights into host-pathogen interactions and reveal new targets for the development of novel antibacterial drugs and vaccines.

Associate Professor Hooper, along with researchers from the Royal Women's Hospital, Melbourne, the Murdoch Childrens Research Institute and the University of Western Australia will focus their research on premature babies with underdeveloped lungs that cannot sustain their breathing needs. As a result, the infants need intensive care which is the most costly and challenging problem in newborn medicine as they can suffer life-long diseases because of their early birth.

Associate Professor Hooper's research will help to understand the causes of lung disease in premature babies and develop better ways of caring for them to improve their chances of survival without ongoing illness and disability.

"Thank you to the National Health and Medical Research Council for supporting Monash researchers to find solutions to some of mankind's greatest challenges," Professor Cornish said.

The NHMRC has also awarded 15 of Monash University's most up-and-coming researchers with Training (Postdoctoral) Fellowships to train in basic research either in Australia or overseas to enable work on research projects with nominated advisers.

Another 15 Monash Postgraduate students were awarded with a Postgraduate Scholarship from the NHMRC that supports outstanding Australian health and medical graduates early in their career so that they can be trained to conduct research that is internationally competitive and develop a capacity for original independent research, usually through the full-time study of a PhD.
 

（www.eduwo.com, Anna）