Future Health Research and Innovation Fund supports promising WA early and mid-career researchers
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Grants of $100,000 have been awarded to 22 early and mid- career researchers under the WA Near Miss Awards (WANMA) Ideas Grants 2023 program, with a total allocation of $2.2 million provided across the health and medical research sector.
The WANMA Ideas Grant program is funded through the Future Health Research and Innovation (FHRI) Fund, which provides a secure source of funding to drive health and medical research and innovation in Western Australia.
The program is designed to support Western Australian researchers who have narrowly missed out on a highly competitive National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) Ideas Grant.
The WANMA Ideas Grant funding is to be used by recipients over a period of 12-months to enhance areas of their NHMRC application which were identified by the NHMRC peer review process as being improvable. Recipients will submit an enhanced application to the NHMRC, increasing their chances of winning a grant in a future selection round.
Below is the full list of recipients for the WANMA Ideas Grants 2023 program:
| Recipient | Responsible entity | Activity title | Funding awarded |
| Dr Tasmin Symons | Curtin University | Realising the potential of malaria treatment on illness, infection and transmission | $100,000 |
| Dr Virginie Lam | Curtin University | Revolutionising multiple sclerosis treatment: AN Innovative remyelination therapy to halt disease progression | $100,000 |
| Dr Virginie Lam | Curtin University | Developing prophylactic interventions for chemotherapy-induced cognitive impairment for breast cancer survivors | $100,000 |
| Dr Thi Ninh Ha | Curtin University | Understanding configurations of community-based multidisciplinary team care to improve management of diabetes: mixed methods in large linked administrative data in Western Australia | $100,000 |
| Dr Laurence Cheung | Curtin University | Deciphering the role of bone marrow fat cells in children with high-risk leukaemia | $100,000 |
| Dr Hani Al-Salami | Curtin University | Repurposing of cholesterol-lowering drug to prevent hearing loss in children with cancer | $100,000 |
| Dr Roslyn Ward | Curtin University | Application of AI in the diagnosis of speech sound disorders in children | $100,000 |
| Dr Christopher Latella | Edith Cowan University | Human motor impairment in Long COVID: Brain and motoneuron dysfunction | $100,000 |
| Dr Oliver Schumacher | Edith Cowan University | Exercise as a novel therapeutic approach for sensitising prostate cancer to radiotherapy | $100,000 |
| Dr Manshu Song | Edith Cowan University | Exploring and translating subjective and objective measures of suboptimal cardiometabolic health in a community-orientated setting | $100,000 |
| Dr Luke Gray Whiley | Murdoch University | A molecular atlas of the skin - Characterising intrinsic skin metabolic phenotypes to improve outcomes in burn injury | $100,000 |
| Dr Jua Iwasaki | Telethon Kids Institute | A novel vaccine to prevent Group A Streptococcus attachment to the tonsils | $100,000 |
| Dr Jonatan Leffler | Telethon Kids Institute | Elucidating the contribution of sex hormones to Epstein Barr Virus responses associated with Multiple Sclerosis: leveraging the transgender immunity study | $100,000 |
| Dr Marcus Korb | University of Western Australia | Ironing Out Antimicrobial Resistance with a New Class of Iron (Half-) sandwich-sugar Conjugates | $100,000 |
| Dr Jamie Beros | University of Western Australia | A brain connectivity approach to treating depression: TMS in adolescent and adult preclinical models | $100,000 |
| Dr Aron Chakera | University of Western Australia | The AVENGE Study: Accelerating Phage Therapy DeVElopmeNt - AI-driven Genotype-phenotype evaluation for targeted pathogen Eradication | $100,000 |
| Dr Erin Lloyd | University of Western Australia | Targeting inflammatory dysfunction to treat dysferlinopathy | $100,000 |
| Dr Benjamin Zwick | University of Western Australia | Can physics-informed neural networks improve registration accuracy for image-guided neurosurgery? | $100,000 |
| Dr Yee Man Elaine Wong | University of Western Australia | Novel nano targeted gene therapy for hearing loss | $100,000 |
| Dr Belinda Guo | University of Western Australia | PlateletSeq: a novel blood test to assess cancer status in myeloproliferative neoplasms | $100,000 |
| Dr Lucy Barrett | Fiona Wood Foundation | Preventing inflammageing after burn injury: Understanding and ameliorating the life-long impact of burns on whole-body homeostasis and health | $100,000 |