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Merit Awards – 2019-2020 recipients

Merit Awards – 2019-2020 recipients

In June 2020, Merit Award grants were awarded to 14 emerging WA research leaders. The grants were received by applicants from the 2019 National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) funding round, who achieved a near-miss in the Ideas Grants and Emerging Leaders Grants categories and met the Department of Health eligibility criteria.

The total value of this Merit Award grant round was $1.33 million and included awards for 4 Ideas Grants and 10 Investigator – Emerging Leaders Grants. The funds are used to increase the likelihood of success in future NHMRC applications.

Chief Investigator NHMRC Program Administering Institution Merit Award Project Title
Dr. Belinda Brown Investigator - Emerging Leaders Murdoch University Physical activity and cognitive health: Establishing evidence for impact and implementation
Dr. Sam Buckberry Investigator - Emerging Leaders University of Western Australia Repair of abnormal genomic imprinting in human induced pluripotent stem cells through naive reprogramming and targeted epigenome engineering
Dr Hui En Jonathan Chee Investigator - Emerging Leaders University of Western Australia Developing a T cell repertoire diversity biomarker for therapy responses in cancer
Dr. Olivier Clement Investigator - Emerging Leaders University of Western Australia Unravelling the chromatin and transcriptomic landscapes underlying learning and memory
Dr. Thomas Iosifidis Ideas University of Western Australia Epigenetic re-programming of fetal epithelial cells - a mechanism for postnatal respiratory disease
Dr. Helen Isobel Keen Investigator - Emerging Leaders University of Western Australia Understanding mechanisms of cardiovascular risk in gout
Assoc. Prof. Joshua Lewis Investigator - Emerging Leaders Edith Cowan University A change of heart: a novel tool to alter the course of cardiovascular disease
Dr. Stephen Macdonald Investigator - Emerging Leaders University of Western Australia Improving survival from sepsis by optimising early management in the emergency department
Dr. Laurens Aarnoud Manning Investigator - Emerging Leaders University of Western Australia Improving clinical management of infections in marginalised populations in Australia and the developing world
Dr. Benjamin Mullin Ideas University of Western Australia Analysis of the osteoclast methylome for characterisation of epigenetic mechanisms underlying metabolic bone disease
Assoc. Prof. Rakesh Naduvile Veedu Ideas Murdoch University Next generation morpholino oligonucleotides for therapeutic alternate splicing
Dr. Barbara Nattabi Investigator - Emerging Leaders University of Western Australia Bridging the gap in quality of care: System oriented approaches for the control of sexually transmissible infections among Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians
Dr. Tenielle Porter Investigator - Emerging Leaders Edith Cowan University Defining genetic, epigenetic and transcriptomic profiles of progression in preclinical Alzheimer’s disease
Dr. Ann-Maree Vallence Ideas Murdoch University Targeting the brain following burn injury: harnessing neural plasticity to promote improvements in functional outcomes.
Last reviewed: 07-09-2020
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