Fellows to advance health and medical research in WA

The Future Health Research and Innovation (FHRI) Fund Distinguished Fellows Program was established to attract outstanding and innovative world-class health and medical research leaders to WA.

Two Fellows have been awarded nearly $5.5 million from the FHRI Fund which will be matched by contributions from the Fellows host and partner organisations, bringing the total value of the Fellowship funding packages to almost $11 million over 5 years.

Telethon Kids Institute will host Associate Professor Kathryn Modecki, currently Research Excellence Lead at Griffith University's Centre for Mental Health, who aims to advance youth mental health by addressing the mechanisms through which early experiences and social inequalities shape children’s future mental health.

This research program will leverage WA’s unique cohort studies and smartphone technology to understand how children’s unique developmental histories influence their daily mental health experiences in order to develop prevention and treatment options for WA’s young people, parents, carers and the community.

Associate Professor Alexey Terskikh from the Sanford Burnham Prebys Medical Discovery Institute in California will lead an innovative program at the Harry Perkins Institute for Medical Research to advance understanding of the cellular mechanisms driving aging, metabolic diseases and rejuvenation with the goal of advancing healthy ageing through tailored therapies.

This research aims to uncover targets that could promote health span and serve as biomarkers of biological age to predict the risk of diseases such as cancer, as well as residual lifespan, better than chronological age.

Terskikh is a leading expert in how the epigenome influences human cells in health, disease, and ageing and is driving fundamental breakthroughs that he is now translating to new biotechnology applications and companies.

Further details of the two successful applicants are provided in the table below: