Exploitation Of Unique Growth Factors To Develop New Products For Infertility Treatment
Funder
National Health and Medical Research Council
Funding Amount
$132,525.00
Summary
Infertility comes at an enormous social and financial cost to Australian society; infertility is a major psychological burden on young couples and the technologies used to treat infertility, such as in vitro fertilisation (IVF), require expensive drugs to stimulate the ovary. The cost of these drugs to Medicare is expected to exceed $100 million p.a. over the next decade. A reproductive technology, which has always shown great potential to elevate some of this burden, is oocyte (egg) in vitro ma ....Infertility comes at an enormous social and financial cost to Australian society; infertility is a major psychological burden on young couples and the technologies used to treat infertility, such as in vitro fertilisation (IVF), require expensive drugs to stimulate the ovary. The cost of these drugs to Medicare is expected to exceed $100 million p.a. over the next decade. A reproductive technology, which has always shown great potential to elevate some of this burden, is oocyte (egg) in vitro maturation (IVM), which drastically reduces the use-cost of drugs and the stress to patients. However, oocyte IVM has been slow to live up to its potential and the technology is still not in widespread clinical practice, mainly due to disappointing success rates in women. We have been studying oocyte IVM in animals for many years, and have recently made a significant technological breakthrough, improving success rates by ~50%. In this field, a 50% increase in efficiency is substantial and has significant clinical and commercial application. Currently, we are the only group worldwide with this technology. Over the course of this 2-year project we will conduct follow-up experiments to refine this discovery and investigate the feasibility of using this approach to treat human infertility. We are already in negotiations with two medical device manufacturers to licence this technology. We expect that this project will lead to a series of products and technologies that will enter a clinical trial for the treatment of infertility within 2-3 years.Read moreRead less
Rapid, Cost-effective, Diagnosis And Monitoring Of Multiple Sclerosis By Novel Multifocal Evoked Potential Methods
Funder
National Health and Medical Research Council
Funding Amount
$152,463.00
Summary
A new technology for concurrently stimulating both eyes, and recording thousands of responses from the brain, will be tested for its effectiveness in diagnosing and tracking progression in Multiple Sclerosis (MS), and the degree to which it complements Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI). Our understanding of MS has changed in recent years. It is now recognised to have two phases: an initial inflammatory phase, and a secondary progressive phase. The progressive phase produces the inexorable increas ....A new technology for concurrently stimulating both eyes, and recording thousands of responses from the brain, will be tested for its effectiveness in diagnosing and tracking progression in Multiple Sclerosis (MS), and the degree to which it complements Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI). Our understanding of MS has changed in recent years. It is now recognised to have two phases: an initial inflammatory phase, and a secondary progressive phase. The progressive phase produces the inexorable increasing disability of MS. MS only affects about 0.04% of Australians but the early onset of MS, the high cost of medication, and the prolonged period of disability, mean that the cost to Australia is about $2 billion pa. MRI quantifies the inflammatory phase well but is poorly correlated with the debilitating secondary progression. The common treatments for MS target the inflammatory phase but not the causes of secondary progression, which are unknown. Current diagnostic methods mean diagnosis can take years, meaning that patients can be denied treatment for some time. The applicants have published experiments on 50 MS patients and 27 normal subjects using a variant of the new method. Not only has it shown high diagnostic accuracy, but the new method seems to provide data on the progressive phase, suggesting strongly that it is complementary to MRI. The new method is also much cheaper to set up and run than MRI and so could provide cost-effective means for monitoring patient condition and testing new drugs that are effective against the progressive phase. The applicants have considerable experience commercialising diagnostic technologies, and are currently working with an Australian company developing new diagnostic hardware. That hardware has been adapted to perform the presently proposed experiments. Overall it is reasonable to assume that positive outcomes will be translated into economic and health benefits for Australians.Read moreRead less
Proof Of Concept Studies On A Novel Class Of Antibiotics
Funder
National Health and Medical Research Council
Funding Amount
$199,700.00
Summary
The rise of drug-resistant superbugs is a major healthcare concern in hospitals across the world. New antibiotics are needed to combat infections caused by bacteria that are resistant to current drugs. One collaborative team of researchers is addressing the issue. They have discovered a new compound effective against Staphylococcus aureus, the cause of Golden Staph. Using a combination of scientific disciplines the team are now developing this compound into a new antibiotic.
Development Of Engineered Novel Growth Factors For Infertility Treatment
Funder
National Health and Medical Research Council
Funding Amount
$410,439.00
Summary
Infertility comes at an enormous social and financial cost to Australian society. The aim of this proposal is to improve the success rate of an innovative technology that matures eggs in the laboratory and so eliminates the need for the hormones normally used in IVF. To achieve this a newly discovered egg-secreted protein first has to be produced in the laboratory.
Commercial Testing Of A Physiologically Based Theory Of Oscillatory Brain Electrical Activity In Anaesthesia Monitoring
Funder
National Health and Medical Research Council
Funding Amount
$191,165.00
Summary
While the mechanisms of local anaesthesia are comparatively well known, the mechanisms whereby anaesthetics impair consciousness remain unresolved. This lack of understanding has implications in our ability to monitor the level of anaesthesia while anaesthetic consumption and side effects are minimized. Despite this a number of devices have been developed that attempt to monitor the depth of anaesthesia by quantifying the brains electrical activity. All monitors analyse the activity using a set ....While the mechanisms of local anaesthesia are comparatively well known, the mechanisms whereby anaesthetics impair consciousness remain unresolved. This lack of understanding has implications in our ability to monitor the level of anaesthesia while anaesthetic consumption and side effects are minimized. Despite this a number of devices have been developed that attempt to monitor the depth of anaesthesia by quantifying the brains electrical activity. All monitors analyse the activity using a set of criteria that have been developed by trial and error. The research of Dr David Liley and his team, at Swinburne University of Technology, has resulted in a detailed understanding of the physiological mechanisms that generate brain electrical activity. The outcome is a practical means to carry out a System Based Analysis of Brain Electrical Response (SABER). In 2004, Dr Liley began working with Cortical Dynamics, a company involved in the commercialisation of medical devices. This collaboration incorporated the SABER system into a new prototype device called the Brain Anaesthesia Response (BAR) monitor. In 2004 Dr Liley and Associate Professor Kate Leslie collaborated in a trial, at the Royal Melbourne Hospital to test the sensitivity of the SABER system in quantifying the effect that various levels of nitrous oxide have on measures of anaesthetic depth. The Australian and New Zealand College of Anaesthetists supported this study. Initial results obtained with sevoflurane and 3 levels of nitrous oxide showed the ability to differentiate between conscious and unconscious states of patients based on two physiological characterizations of higher brain dynamic state. The next step requires commercial product validation (ie scale up) and further clinical efficacy in testing beta stage depth of anaesthesia BAR units. Completion of this will help the technology move away from a low volume prototype system into a commercially applicable device.Read moreRead less
External Therapeutic Device To Support Rehabilitation Of The Hand Following Trauma Or Surgery
Funder
National Health and Medical Research Council
Funding Amount
$175,000.00
Summary
The loss of hand function will affect every aspect of an individual’s life. This includes the ability to feed and care for themselves and the ability to work and participate in family life. For people recovering from problems such as trauma, burns or surgery affecting the hand, careful management of hand rehabilitation can influence the outcome for the patient significantly. In order to reduce the possibility of mobility difficulties occurring, including loss of joint range of motion, muscle and ....The loss of hand function will affect every aspect of an individual’s life. This includes the ability to feed and care for themselves and the ability to work and participate in family life. For people recovering from problems such as trauma, burns or surgery affecting the hand, careful management of hand rehabilitation can influence the outcome for the patient significantly. In order to reduce the possibility of mobility difficulties occurring, including loss of joint range of motion, muscle and tendon sheath adhesions or non-functional scar tissue formation, continuous passive motion (CPM) is often indicated. Additionally, for people with reduced mobility of the hand due to upper limb paralysis, such as those with cervical spinal cord injury, stroke, cerebral palsy or peripheral nerve injury, disregard for management of the maintenance of the joint range of motion of the effected hand will result in contracture and limited joint range of motion. Such syndromes will reduce hand function, which is already limited by paralysis, and will negatively affect potential outcomes for aggressive rehabilitation techniques, such as tendon transfer surgery and functional neuromuscular stimulation. Therefore, in such cases, CPM is also indicated. Current devices applying CPM have shown to be effective in minimising the syndromes indicated above and these results are summarised in the Background and Research Plan attached to this proposal. Unfortunately, the use of such devices is not always prescribed by clinicians. This is due, mainly, to the limitations of these devices that are in the marketplace. These limitations include lack of secure finger placement, lack of portability, the inability to provide specialised therapy to specific joints and inflexible programming. This proposal introduces an improved device to be developed and these improvements form the proposal aims below. Given such an improved device, which can overcome many of the problems with current CPM machines, it is likely that that the clinical application of CPM will achieve the greater degree of prescription and application in hand rehabilitation. These improvements should overcome the clinical reticence to use these devices and restore a balance by increasing their use to the level that the scientific literature indicates they should have. The overall aim of the proposal is to take the device to a stage where it is ready for clinical trial.Read moreRead less
Newborn babies are at risk of becoming short of oxygen during delivery and sustaining brain damage. Seizures may cause further damage to the brain because they release damaging chemicals or make extra energy demands on the brain that cannot be met. To detect seizures, it is necessary to measure the EEG, the tiny electrical signals from the brain. We are proposing to automatically detect and count seizures, building upon 8 years of fundamental EEG signal processing research work we have undertake ....Newborn babies are at risk of becoming short of oxygen during delivery and sustaining brain damage. Seizures may cause further damage to the brain because they release damaging chemicals or make extra energy demands on the brain that cannot be met. To detect seizures, it is necessary to measure the EEG, the tiny electrical signals from the brain. We are proposing to automatically detect and count seizures, building upon 8 years of fundamental EEG signal processing research work we have undertaken. We anticipate that the product will be of major commercial interest. We will further explore what is a rapidly expanding marketplace and ensure we maximize the commercial return on this product.Read moreRead less
Seminal Plasma Cytokines As Novel Fertility Diagnostics In Men
Funder
National Health and Medical Research Council
Funding Amount
$101,000.00
Summary
Infertility and recurrent miscarriage affect 60-80 million couples globally, including 15% of couples in Australia. Current IVF therapy is not successful when the underlying reason for infertility is failure of the maternal tissues to support embryo implantation. We have discovered signaling proteins present in male semen that act in the female reproductive tissues to prepare for embryo implantation and healthy pregnancy. Recently we have identified those proteins and have shown that some men ha ....Infertility and recurrent miscarriage affect 60-80 million couples globally, including 15% of couples in Australia. Current IVF therapy is not successful when the underlying reason for infertility is failure of the maternal tissues to support embryo implantation. We have discovered signaling proteins present in male semen that act in the female reproductive tissues to prepare for embryo implantation and healthy pregnancy. Recently we have identified those proteins and have shown that some men have an imbalance in seminal proteins that leads to immune rejection of the embryo in the female partner. This project aims to develop a new test for male fertility that is based on seminal plasma proteins and independent of existing sperm count tests. Furthermore we will determine whether seminal protein imbalance can result from the �silent� presence of male reproductive tract infection.Read moreRead less
Se015: A Developmental Drug For The Treatment Of Brain Tumours
Funder
National Health and Medical Research Council
Funding Amount
$304,206.00
Summary
Primary malignant brain tumors are amongst the most lethal forms of human cancers with median survival for these patients being only around 1 year. In spite of the advent of new targeted therapies for some cancers the prognosis for these patients remains dismal. Worldwide, more than 95% of all people who contract the disease will die of it. This is because there are no effective therapies and all current treatments are only palliative, seeking to lesson the distressing suffering associated with ....Primary malignant brain tumors are amongst the most lethal forms of human cancers with median survival for these patients being only around 1 year. In spite of the advent of new targeted therapies for some cancers the prognosis for these patients remains dismal. Worldwide, more than 95% of all people who contract the disease will die of it. This is because there are no effective therapies and all current treatments are only palliative, seeking to lesson the distressing suffering associated with disease progression. Nearly all therapies that have shown some efficacy in treating cancer, such as chemotherapy and radiation have a mode of action whereby they attempt to kill cancer cells by inflicting enough damage to the cancer cells that they induce them to commit cell suicide, a process called apoptosis. Unfortunately, cancer cells can become resistant to these therapies by activating the cells' own signaling pathways that normally block apoptosis. One of the key pathways that has been implicated in resistance to apoptosis in human cancers is the PI3K-Akt pathway. This pathway is overactivated in many advanced human tumors, particularly in glioblastoma. We have discovered a compound, Se015, which can effecitively block this pathway in brain cancer cells and is able to dramatically improve the effectiveness of both chemotherapy and radiation in killing these cells. We have confirmed the efectiveness of Se015 in preliminary animal models of brain cancer, where we have shown that Se015 demonstrated no noticeable toxicity and was active when taken orally. We now need to explore further the molecular mode of action of Se015, as well as complete our animal studies with the eventual aim of initiating a small trial of Se015 in glioblastoma patients in the forseeable future.Read moreRead less