The project, titled A comparative effects trial of digital mental healthcare models for adults with epilepsy, will be led by Dr Milena Gandy from the School of Psychological Sciences.

The team includes Macquarie researchers Professor Blake Dear, Professor Nick Titov, Dr Eyal Karin and Professor Henry Cutler, as well as investigators from Monash University, Royal Prince Alfred Hospital and the University of Melbourne.

Pictured: Dr Milena Gandy, School of Psychological Sciences

The trial will receive $973,195 over five years. It will compare the acceptability and effectiveness of guided versus unguided digital psychological interventions aimed at improving mental health and functional outcomes in adults with epilepsy.

The guided model will deliver the intervention with support from mental health specialists, while the unguided model offers the intervention in a self-directed format.

Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Research) Professor Sakkie Pretorius, congratulated the research team on its well-deserved success.

“Macquarie has a strong track record not only in providing research and innovation in the online mental health sector, but also in delivering real-world solutions through our award-winning eCentreClinic and MindSpot Clinic,” he said.

“Demand for online mental health services, such as the eCentreClinic and MindSpot, soared during the pandemic and has remained high as people have embraced the accessibility and effectiveness of these tools.

“This new clinical trial will be invaluable in informing the public health potential for targeted models of care such as these, and for online mental health services more widely.”

Partner organisations Epilepsy Action Australia and the Epilepsy Society of Australia will play a key role in raising awareness of the research project through promotion, advertising and engaging with clinicians and patients.

Close to $1 million in funding has been awarded to Macquarie University for a project that aims to address the under-representation of girls and women in STEM.

Macquarie’s Girls to Graduates (G2G) program was one of 17 projects nationwide to receive funding in the Australian Government’s Women in STEM and Entrepreneurship (WISE) scheme announced in January.

Focusing on four principal objectives – engage, encourage, enable and empower – the project builds on the University’s award-winning initiatives in bringing together school, academic and industry partners to encourage participation of girls and women in STEM education and careers.

G2G is led by Pro Vice-Chancellor (Programs and Pathways) Professor Taryn Jones, 2019 Eureka Prize for STEM Inclusion winner Associate Professor Joanne Jamie, and Head of Educational Services Dr Stuart Upton – all from the Faculty of Science and Engineering – and Widening Participation’s Senior Outreach Support Officer Jacinta Carruthers.

“We are elated to have funding for a project focused on breaking down barriers to women working in STEM at multiple stages of their educational journey,” says Jones. “It recognises Macquarie’s integrated and sustainable approach as we work towards increasing the proportion of women and girls choosing – and remaining in – STEM careers.

“We are particularly thrilled to be working with two of our top female experts on this project, Jacinta and Joanne – what better way to showcase women in STEM than that?”

A champion for STEM inclusion: Associate Professor Joanne Jamie was part of the Eureka Prize-winning team for STEM Inclusion in 2019.

Among the funded project initiatives will be:

• an extension of the popular Junior Science Academy holiday program to provide sponsored STEM holiday program placements for girls from equity backgrounds
• programs providing a breadth of STEM learning and leadership opportunities for high school girls from low socioeconomic status and regional and remote partner schools
• a new equity pathway and scholarship scheme to support entry into undergraduate STEM programs for female high school students from equity backgrounds
• mentoring, internship and summer industry placements for G2G program participants during their study at Macquarie to support their successful transition to STEM careers.

“Through these coordinated activities, we are anticipating an increase not only in the participation of girls and women in STEM, but also in their confidence and success across the different stages of their academic lifespan,” says Jamie. “As a university, we have such an important role to play in building Australia’s STEM capability and through our Girls to Graduates program we are ready to make that difference.”

Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Research) Professor Sakkie Pretorius says an impressive number of Macquarie’s applications in this round have been successful, with 20 per cent being funded.

“It is extremely gratifying to see the work of our world-leading researchers being recognised yet again through such significant grant funding,” he says.

“These are projects with the potential to make a difference to the lives of patients battling debilitating and life-threatening diseases, and they represent the tremendous breadth of research underway at Macquarie.”

Five of the grants go to projects led by researchers from the Faculty of Medicine, Health and Human Sciences, with the sixth from the Faculty of Science and Engineering.

• A team led by Professor Antonio Di Ieva from Macquarie Medical School, and including Dr Sidong Liu, Professor John Magnussen and Professor Benoit Liquet, receives $1,556,663. Their five-year project, ‘Computational analysis and artificial intelligence in brain tumour imaging: towards the augmented diagnostics of the future’, will aim to improve clinical outcomes by using computer models, including AI, to augment expert diagnosis of brain tumours.

• A team led by Professor Lars Ittner from Macquarie Medical School, and including Dr Julia van der Hoven, Dr Yuanyuan Deng and Dr Shelley Forrest, receives $1,212,345 for a four-year project on ‘Inhibition failure in Alzheimer’s disease’. The project will investigate how networks of neurones fail in the brains of people with dementia and will test new ways to prevent or treat the resulting losses.

• A team led by Associate Professor Vivek Gupta from Macquarie Medical School, and including Professor Stuart Graham and Associate Professor Mehdi Mirzaei, receives $1,186,771 over four years for a project titled ‘Let there be light – Modified Serpin as a Dual Function Therapeutic Agent in Glaucoma’. Glaucoma is one of the leading causes of blindness worldwide. Professor Gupta’s team has engineered a protease inhibitor to protect the cells in the retina, and the funding will allow them to test its effectiveness when delivered direct to retinal cells using an ‘artificial virus’ approach.

• A team led by Dr Shelley Forrest from Macquarie Medical School, and including Dr Annika van Hummel, receives $1,025,253 for a three-year project on ‘Understanding neurodegeneration caused by oligodendroglial dysfunction’. It will investigate globular glial tauopathy, a debilitating form of early-onset dementia, which shows abnormal tau proteins in oligodendroglia, the main support cells for neurones. While previous research has focused on the neurones, this study will investigate the effect of dysfunction in the oligodendroglia.

• A team led by Dr Christina Perry from the School of Psychological Sciences receives $876,991.56 for a project titled ‘Incubation of craving for alcohol: Is exercise a viable intervention?’ Environmental cues can elicit strong cravings in people with alcohol use disorder, and these cravings increase over longer periods of abstinence, raising the risk of relapse. Built on a preclinical study that found voluntary exercise can help prevent cravings, this four-year study will identify the neural changes responsible for the increase in cravings and the restorative effect of exercise, and test how long the benefits of exercise last.

• A team led by Distinguished Professor Nicki Packer from the School of Natural Sciences, and including early career researcher Dr Hasinika Hewawasam Gamage, receives $847,242.50 to investigate ‘Metformin, gut epithelium and microbiome in the prevention of colorectal cancer’ over the next three years. Metformin – a drug used to treat Type 2 diabetes – has also been shown to suppress cancer and has the potential to prevent colorectal cancer. The successful implementation of Metformin as a preventative in colorectal cancer is being limited by a lack of knowledge on how it elicits these anti-cancer effects. The project will examine its impacts on the colon’s mucous lining, its microbiome and the development of colorectal cancer.

Professor Castles received $3,147,256 to conduct the first comprehensive report into secondary school reading acquisition. She will investigate the cognitive processes in adolescent reading, as well as identifying interactions between reading progress and socio-emotional functioning and motivation, with the aim of finding new ways to improve secondary school teaching methods and interventions for students struggling with literacy.

Professor Castles says with as many as 40 per cent of 15-year-olds failing to meet international minimum literacy standards, research is urgently needed.

“Reading and writing skills are critical in adolescence for learning and preparation for adult life, and it is of major national concern that Australian literacy rates have been steadily falling over the past two decades,” says Professor Castles.

“I am thrilled to have been awarded an ARC Laureate Fellowship to look at ways to begin addressing the urgent issue of literacy among secondary school students, especially disadvantaged students and those from non-English speaking backgrounds, ultimately helping them meet their potential.”

Macquarie University Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Research) Professor Sakkie Pretorius congratulated Professor Castles on securing the Fellowship.

“A Laureate Fellowship is the ARC’s highest accolade and an outstanding achievement, which is reflective of Professor Castles’ leadership in the field of reading research,” says Professor Pretorius.

“Declining literacy rates among our young people is a national challenge that needs to be addressed, and this work promises to offer new solutions based on pioneering and rigorous research. Macquarie University has a large concentration of cutting-edge reading researchers and is uniquely positioned to support this work.”

The study aims to improve emergency department care and outcomes for patients with complex health needs.

In NSW emergency departments, consumers who are older, have a disability, present with a mental health condition, are Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander, or come from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds, will be involved in research to improve the safety and quality of care they receive.

Patients from these groups often spend longer than average in ED and have worse outcomes than the general population, including greater likelihood of multiple return visits.

The research will include input from clinicians and be conducted in Westmead and Blacktown Mount Druitt hospitals in Western Sydney, with successful improvements to be rolled out to other hospitals across the state.

“This is a clear example of how research led by Macquarie University is meeting the healthcare needs of the people who need it most in our community,” says Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Research), Professor Sakkie Pretorius.

The grant is part of $24m in funding provided to projects that will explore better ways to reduce wait times for people presenting to emergency departments projects around the country through the MRFF’s Emerging Priorities and Consumer Driven Research Initiative.

Find out more on the Australian Institute of Health Innovation website.

The Minister for Health and Aged Care, The Hon Greg Hunt MP, announced the latest round of Investigator Grants and Partnerships Grant funding today, Tuesday 14 September.

Six Macquarie projects receive a total of $4.6 million in Investigator Grant funding, with another two projects led by researchers in the Australian Institute of Health Innovation (AIHI) within the Faculty of Medicine, Health and Human Sciences receiving $2.47 million in Partnership Project funding.

Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Research) Professor Sakkie Pretorius says it is very pleasing to see the groundbreaking work of Macquarie University researchers being recognised with Federal Government investment.

“This funding provides a major boost for our Healthy People future-shaping research priority, allowing us to pioneer further knowledge and innovation in healthcare, particularly in aged care and wellness – an area of increasing importance as our population ages.

“I congratulate our grant recipients on their success and am proud that Macquarie University is improving the lives of so many Australians through our research and clinical excellence.”

Congratulations to all our NHMRC grant recipients.

Dr Kate Churruca of the AIHI receives $650,740 for a research program to identify how the culture of aged care facilities affects residents’ safety and quality of care, and create strategies to improve this and resident outcomes.

Professor Enrico Coiera of the AIHI is awarded $1.5 million for a research program to bring artificial intelligence into the real world of healthcare, looking at issues including safety and testing of claims of benefit.

Dr Carly Johnco from the School of Psychological Sciences is awarded $650,740 to examine ways of treating late-life anxiety, particularly in people with age-related changes in cognition, based on significant advances in understanding of how to reduce fears in younger adults using experimental neuroscience research.

Dr Jenny Lee from the Macquarie Medical School receives $530,518 to investigate treatment for people with advanced head and neck cancer, using material from patients’ own tumours to test responses to new drugs and select the most suitable therapy for each individual.

Dr Mitchell Sarkies of the AIHI is awarded $617,582.88 to develop an evidence-based management model to improve the care provided following hip fractures. It aims to assist in reducing surgery wait times, improving recovery rates, and alleviate pain and suffering.

Dr Yan (Anne) Zou from the Macquarie Medical School receives $650,740 to develop a way of safely and effectively treating brain tumours by delivering cutting-edge gene therapies directly into the brain. Until now, options for applying gene therapies to the brain have been limited.

A joint project led by Professor Andrew Georgiou of the AIHI receives more than $1 million from the NHMRC to improve the quality of patient diagnostic tools, including ensuring the right pathology tests are ordered, measuring the quality of diagnosis, and assessing the appropriateness of treatment.

A joint project led by Professor Johanna Westbrook of the AIHI, and steered by a new National Aged Care Medication Roundtable, receives more than $1.4m from the NHMRC to devise innovative and practical IT-based solutions to address poor medication management in residential aged care, initially focusing on the overuse of antibiotics and antipsychotics.

The Digital Finance CRC will bring together a unique group of stakeholders in fintech, industry, research, and regulation to develop and commercially utilise the opportunities arising from the next transformation of the financial markets. Partners include the RBA, NAB and CSIRO, as well as private sector entities and partner universities.

The successful bid will see a cash investment of $122 million over a ten-year period (including $60 million from the Federal Government), and a substantial amount of in-kind investment from consortium partners.

Professor Michael Aitken – from Macquarie’s highly acclaimed Department of Applied Finance – led Macquarie’s input on the successful CRC bid, with support from DVCR and Macquarie Business School Executive Dean Professor Eric Knight. Professor Aitken will lead a research program focused on guiding the world through the next transformation of its global markets, with funding expected to commence in mid-2022.

“The world is on the starting blocks of another fundamental transformation of the finance industry,” Professor Aitken says. “Australia was at the forefront of the first wave of new technologies and services that came with the digital finance transformation in the 1980s, and now we are set to be at the vanguard of this next new wave.”

The Digital Finance CRC is the second Cooperative Research Centre to be led by Macquarie, following the University’s successful bid for the SmartCrete CRC last year.

Vice-Chancellor and President Professor S. Bruce Dowton says Macquarie’s success in the CRC program is reflective of the University’s strong and productive links with industry, government and community partners.

“The success of this Digital Finance CRC bid is testament to the world-class research capability held by the bid partners,” he says. “Macquarie University is excited to facilitate this new multi-disciplinary consortium representing some of Australia’s biggest industry sectors and leading domestic and international innovators in business and research.”

What is Digital Finance?

Digital Finance is an economic system where individual assets are digitised. This includes ‘traditional’ assets as well as entirely new asset classes like NFTs (non-fungible tokens).

An asset-digitised financial world allows global marketplaces to operate 24/7 and exchange digitised assets instantaneously, and create new forms of economic activity and interactions.

These new forms of finance markets will create global competition for reliable and trusted investment environments. The Digital Finance CRC will act as an independent entity to lead the research and compliance in these environments.

Learn more about the Digital Finance CRC at dfcrc.com.au.

The funding announced today by Minister for Health and Aged Care, The Hon Greg Hunt MP, will support research focused on innovative solutions in back pain, hearing and vision in people living with dementia, and cancer immunotherapy.

Professor Simon French from the Department of Chiropractic and Professor Mark Hancock from the Department of Health Professions will lead a project to investigate whether patients with low back pain would benefit from team-based care by integrating physiotherapists or chiropractors into GP clinics. The study received $2.1 million to evaluate the effect of this innovative approach on patient health, health system outcomes, and costs. Other chief investigators include Dr Petra Graham from the Department of Mathematics and Statistics and Dr Katie De Luca from the Department of Chiropractic. The results will inform decision-makers about whether physiotherapists or chiropractors should be integrated within GPs’ clinics more widely.

A cross-disciplinary team led by Associate Professor Piers Dawes from the Department of Linguistics was awarded $1.2 million for research into effective ways to support people with hearing or vision problems who are also living with dementia in residential aged care. Hearing and vision impairments are common among this population, yet their needs often go unsupported, deteriorating their quality of life and independence, causing social isolation, and compounding the impacts of dementia. Professor Johanna Westbrook from the Australian Institute of Health Innovation, Professor Ralph Martins from the Department of Biomedical Sciences and Dr Yuanyuan Gu from the Macquarie University Centre for the Health Economy are chief investigators on the project, which will work alongside people with dementia, aged care providers and hearing and vision professionals to enable better ways of identifying and supporting hearing and vision needs.

A study to develop a simple blood test to enhance immunotherapy treatment outcomes for melanoma and lung cancer patients received a grant of over $2 million. Professor Helen Rizos from the Department of Biomedical Sciences will lead the project with chief investigators Dr Jenny Lee from the Department of Clinical Medicine, Professor Enrico Coiera and Dr Louise Ellis from the Australian Institute of Health Innovation. The project seeks to address the lack of an accurate method for predicting how an individual will respond to cancer immunotherapy drugs. While recent advances in immunotherapy have improved outcomes for some patients, many others do not respond to the treatment. The researchers will develop a simple and safe blood test to predict and monitor how a patient will respond to the therapy, allowing immediate, informed treatment decisions.

Professor Sakkie Pretorius, Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Research), congratulated the researchers on their success in the latest round of MRFF funding.

“Macquarie University researchers are at the cutting edge of health and medical research,” says Professor Pretorius. “While the world’s attention is rightly on the global pandemic, these researchers are working hard to address some of the other ubiquitous global health concerns, from back pain to dementia care and cancer treatment.”

Ms Tang was among six recipients who were presented with a share of $1 million worth of funding toward age-related macular degeneration (AMD) by Australia’s Governor-General, David Hurley in a ceremony at Admiralty House last month.

The Macular Disease Foundation Australia (MDFA)  grants will fund eight promising projects working to reduce the incidence and impact of macular disease, which affects one in seven Australians over 50. The projects will explore gene therapies, using novel imaging techniques, improving patients’ quality of life, and creating a macula in retinal organoids that could potentially help treat AMD and other macular conditions.

Ms Tang and her MQ Hearing team project will focus on development, implementation and evaluation of an online movement, interaction and nutrition program for people with AMD.

“Our study will pilot a diet, exercise and social interaction program designed to boost the mental and physical wellbeing of people living with AMD,” Ms Tang says.

Celebrating MDFA’s 20^th anniversary and a decade of the MDFA Research Grants Program, this $1m investment brings MDFA’s total commitment to $5.1m since 2011. MDFA is now Australia’s largest source of research funding in the field of macular disease outside of government.

“This announcement underlines the sheer volume of gifted researchers – particularly early-career researchers – that Australia is producing,” MDFA CEO Dee Hopkins said.

“MDFA is proud to play its part in supporting and funding these rising stars.”

Applications for the grant were subject to a highly rigorous assessment process.

In congratulating the grant recipients, Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Research) Professor Sakkie Pretorius says all Macquarie staff can feel proud to be part of a research institution generating the knowledge behind tomorrow’s healthcare.

“These projects are a true embodiment of MQ Health’s ‘Heal.Learn.Discover’ mission, delivering innovations that will go on to help millions of people – and potentially save hundreds of thousands of lives,” he says. “This funding is the result of the extraordinary work and dedication of many talented researchers and support staff, and I congratulate them all on this success.”

Congratulations to our new NHMRC Ideas Grants recipients

Professor Thomas Fath (Lead Chief Investigator); Dr Janet Van Eersel and Dr Magdalena Przybyla (Chief Investigators)

$1,252,244 for ‘Unraveling the molecular mechanism of tau spread in Alzheimer’s disease’

Dementia is the second biggest cause of death in Australia and in this project, Professor Fath’s team will look at the progression of Alzheimer’s disease, which is still poorly understood.

Recent findings by the team suggest that core cellular pathways and building blocks of nerve cell connections are required to allow the spread of pathology in the brain. The project will look at whether these pathways can be used as effective targets to intercept the disease and prevent further cognitive decline.

Professor Marcus Stoodley (Lead Chief Investigator); Dr Lucinda McRobb (Chief Investigator)

$993,866 for ‘Preventing stroke from arteriovenous malformations using precision thrombosis’

This project will focus on malformations in the brain called AVMs, which are the main cause of stroke in children and young adults. Most large AVMs are untreatable, leaving one-third of young patients at constant risk of sudden death or lifelong neurological disability.

The team aims to develop and clinically trial new medicines that – when combined with focused radiation – will block the abnormal vessels, preventing them from bleeding and causing stroke.

Associate Professor Yazi Ke (Lead Chief Investigator); Dr Annika Van Hummel  and Dr Alexandra Daryl Ariawan (Chief Investigators)

$687,444 for ‘Targeting pathogenic TAR DNA-binding protein 43 to treat frontotemporal dementia and motor neuron disease’

Frontotemporal dementia and motor neuron disease are rapidly progressive and fatal neurodegenerative diseases that affect people in their prime. Poor understanding of the processes that lead to these diseases have slowed drug development.

Through innovative experimental design, the team aims to decipher a novel disease mechanism that involves specific molecular interactions and translate these findings into new therapies for the diseases.

Associate Professor Simon McMullan (Lead Chief Investigator); Dr Cara Hildreth and Dr Peter Burke (Chief Investigators)

$517,958 for ‘Innate threat detection circuits in the superior colliculus co-ordinate respiratory and cardiovascular responses to visual stimuli’

Our surroundings have a physical effect on bodies, and things like light pollution, traffic, and aircraft noise all significantly affect cardiovascular health. Syndromes that make people hyper-sensitive to sensory stimuli (such as post-traumatic stress disorder) can sometimes even double cardiovascular risk in these patients.

This project will investigate the interactions between systems in our brain that subconsciously scan our surroundings for interesting or threatening features, and those that co-ordinate our cardiovascular and respiratory systems. The findings will significantly improve understanding of how sensory information affects the autonomic nervous system.