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09 Dec 2019

Doherty Institute researchers successful in ARC Discovery Project funding announcements

A project which aims to better understand the immune system’s response to infection and cancer is one of 3 Discovery Project grants awarded to Doherty Institute researchers by the Australian Research Council (ARC)

Announced last week by the Federal Minister of Education, the Hon. Dan Tehan, the Discovery Projects Scheme aims to fund innovative research that will benefit Australians.

Doherty Institute Director, Professor Sharon Lewin, commended the recipients.

“The recent awards from the Australian Research Council to our staff demonstrate the excellence and breadth of our work which includes human health, animal health and the agricultural sector,” Professor Lewin said.      

University of Melbourne Professor Laura Mackay, a Laboratory Head at the Doherty Institute, and University of Melbourne Dr Maximillien Evrard, a McKenzie Postdoctoral Fellow in her lab, were awarded $560,500 for a project which aims to discover the function of a specific molecule found in T cells called S1P5.

“We hope to discover the involvement of S1P5 in the immune response and determine how it can be controlled to enhance protective T cell immunity,” Professor Mackay said.

“We hope the outcomes of this research will generate fundamental new knowledge that will help us understand how the immune response can be regulated.”

University of Melbourne Professors David Jackson and Patrick Reading, both Laboratory Heads at the Doherty Institute, were together awarded $583,049 to research how innate immunity can be harnessed to mitigate bovine respiratory disease (BRD), the most significant health problem faced by the beef industry worldwide, causing economic losses of up to $40 million annually in Australia alone.

The project will provide significant benefits such as advances to fundamental knowledge, training of higher research degree students and the creation of proof-of-concept data to promote collaborations with commercial partners to develop novel treatment strategies to limit BRD.

Lastly, University of Melbourne Dr Nancy Wang, a Research Officer at the Doherty Institute and her Laboratory Head, University of Melbourne Professor Dick Strugnell, have received $587,000 to examine how antigen selection mechanisms control T cell immunity against bacteria.

Their work aims to improve the understanding of bacterial immunity and inform the future design of T-cell based vaccines in the agricultural sector.