Unravelling The Behavioural And Brain Mechanisms Of Compulsive Disorders, And New Ways To Treat Them
Funder
National Health and Medical Research Council
Funding Amount
$635,076.00
Summary
Disorders of compulsion, such as obsessive-compulsive disorder and substance use disorder, are chronic, debilitating, and present a significant cost to the individual and to society. Together, these disorders affect more than 10% of the population. Moreover, 40-60% of these individuals are resistant to current treatment. The current project is aimed at improving the preclinical research underlying our understanding the behavioural and brain mechanisms of such disorders and how to treat them.
Prion-like Behaviour In Immunity: Super-sized Signalling Platforms?
Funder
National Health and Medical Research Council
Funding Amount
$611,995.00
Summary
Prions have been mostly associated with pathologies but recent discoveries show that prion-like behaviour may be beneficial, enhancing our immune response for example. To test this, we want to systematically explore all human proteins involved in the defence against pathogens, find new prion-like trends and probe their role in the innate immune response.
Discovery Early Career Researcher Award - Grant ID: DE180100306
Funder
Australian Research Council
Funding Amount
$365,058.00
Summary
Does spurious maternal-fetal signalling support the evolution of a placenta. This project aims to test a model that explains how the placenta has evolved as a new organ more than 100 times in fishes, reptiles, and mammals including our own ancestors. The project will assess whether regulatory components of the placenta evolve as a result of spurious maternal-fetal signalling following egg retention and eggshell loss in viviparous reptiles. Expected outcomes of this project include a new understa ....Does spurious maternal-fetal signalling support the evolution of a placenta. This project aims to test a model that explains how the placenta has evolved as a new organ more than 100 times in fishes, reptiles, and mammals including our own ancestors. The project will assess whether regulatory components of the placenta evolve as a result of spurious maternal-fetal signalling following egg retention and eggshell loss in viviparous reptiles. Expected outcomes of this project include a new understanding of how complex organs originate and evolve in animals. This will benefit society through a broader depth of understanding of our own evolutionary history and provides a framework for future studies to investigate the origin and evolution of organs more broadly in animals.Read moreRead less
Inflammation as an early form of maternal-fetal signalling in pregnancy. The project aims to understand the role of inflammatory signalling in marsupial pregnancy. This project is expected to explain why inflammation, a processes normally confined to injury and infection, is a part of reproduction in live-bearing mammals. Outcomes of this project include robust measures of the capacity for, impact of, and evolution of, inflammatory signalling in marsupial pregnancy. The project will provide new ....Inflammation as an early form of maternal-fetal signalling in pregnancy. The project aims to understand the role of inflammatory signalling in marsupial pregnancy. This project is expected to explain why inflammation, a processes normally confined to injury and infection, is a part of reproduction in live-bearing mammals. Outcomes of this project include robust measures of the capacity for, impact of, and evolution of, inflammatory signalling in marsupial pregnancy. The project will provide new knowledge about the unique biology of Australia's marsupial fauna.This project will provide significant benefits, including enhanced capacity for reproduction research in Australia, new international collaborations between Melbourne and Yale, and a new explanation for the puzzling role of inflammation in pregnancy.Read moreRead less
Old genes learning new tricks: characterising regulatory changes driving increased heart complexity during vertebrate evolution. The heart has dramatically increased in morphological complexity during vertebrate evolution but the molecular basis driving these major changes remains unknown. Using comparative genomics approaches, this project will explore changes in the regulation of genes involved in heart formation that lead to changes in cardiac structure. It will elucidate for the first time t ....Old genes learning new tricks: characterising regulatory changes driving increased heart complexity during vertebrate evolution. The heart has dramatically increased in morphological complexity during vertebrate evolution but the molecular basis driving these major changes remains unknown. Using comparative genomics approaches, this project will explore changes in the regulation of genes involved in heart formation that lead to changes in cardiac structure. It will elucidate for the first time the cardiac regulatory repertoire in zebrafish and will compare it with that of fly and mouse using cutting-edge bioinformatics pipelines. This work will unravel cardiac-specific regulatory modifications that give rise to evolutionary changes. On a broader scale, it will shed new light on the role of regulatory innovations over gene innovations in the emergence of new traits.Read moreRead less
Determining principles for successful episode retrieval of repeated events. This project aims to develop the first-ever set of explanatory principles for how people successfully retain and retrieve individual episode memories from repeated experiences (e.g., one occurrence of a routine social encounter or job-related activity). By deepening our understanding of how memory works, this new knowledge is expected to lay the foundation for interview guidance and ongoing research aimed at enhancing th ....Determining principles for successful episode retrieval of repeated events. This project aims to develop the first-ever set of explanatory principles for how people successfully retain and retrieve individual episode memories from repeated experiences (e.g., one occurrence of a routine social encounter or job-related activity). By deepening our understanding of how memory works, this new knowledge is expected to lay the foundation for interview guidance and ongoing research aimed at enhancing the proficiency of investigations into matters that rely on detailed and accurate accounts of specific episodes. This includes workplace or traffic accident investigations, infectious disease contact tracing, as well as prosecution of repeated sexual offences.Read moreRead less
The Burden Of Late Preterm Birth On Brain Development And 2 Year Outcomes – A Prospective, Longitudinal Cohort Study
Funder
National Health and Medical Research Council
Funding Amount
$838,690.00
Summary
80% of preterm babies are born from 32-36 weeks’ gestation, and are late preterm (LPT). LPT children have more learning problems, but why this occurs is unknown. This study aims to understand the effect of LPT birth on brain development. We will do brain scans at term and assess development at 2 years of age of 200 LPT and 200 full-term children. We expect LPT babies will have subtle alterations in brain development compared with term controls which will be associated with delayed development.
Signalling Pathways And Fungal Virulence – The Inositol Polyphosphate Kinase Pathway In Cryptococcus Neoformans
Funder
National Health and Medical Research Council
Funding Amount
$545,189.00
Summary
Bloodstream fungal infections kill millions of people per year world-wide and are costly to treat. A potentially fruitful strategy for developing new, urgently-needed drugs to fight these infections, is to target signalling pathways, which in fungi, are essential for establishing infection. This proposal investigates how one such pathway, the inositolpolyphosphate kinase pathway, allows fungi to establish infection and will determine which components are suitable targets for drug development.
Motor problems, ranging from clumsiness to cerebral palsy, are one of the most common adverse outcomes in children born early. This study will investigate the motor development of children born <30 weeks’ gestation compared with peers born at term from birth to 5 years. We will determine whether early clinical evaluations or neuroimaging in the newborn period can predict later motor impairment at 5 years to be able to identify those who will benefit most from early intervention.
Invasive fungal infections are a serious, escalating health issue. They cause severe disease with high death rates and are very costly to the health system. Current drugs often have suboptimal efficacy and cause side effects. New drugs are needed urgently. Many fungi, including the AIDS-related pathogen, Cryptococcus neoformans, secrete phospholipase B (Plbp) to facilitate infection. We will identify and investigate the Plbp secretion pathway as a novel anti-fungal drug target.