Category: News

While the creation of the Medical Research Future Fund (MRFF) has greatly increased research funding, Australia still lags behind other nations in translation of research into improved healthcare and economic growth. Unlike Australia, competing jurisdictions (e.g. UK, USA and Singapore) have systematically invested in frontline health service clinical staff who drive research and translation in combination with clinical care. Such staff have dedicated funded time to involve consumers and stakeholders in all aspects of research and translation; to lead clinical, data, innovation and healthcare improvement research embedded in clinical care; to provide translational expertise for partnership with healthcare and industry; and to champion integration of research-driven evidence and innovation into healthcare to deliver “Better Health through Research”. AHRA describe such staff as Research Translators and propose that funding such positions would plug a critical clinical workforce gap that threatens to inhibit delivery of many MRFF priorities.

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The Future Health Research and Innovation (FHRI) Fund enabling legislation commenced on 24 June 2020. The legislation provides Western Australian health and medical researchers and innovators with a secure and ongoing source of funding.

The first program to be funded under the FHRI Fund scheme is now open and calling for proposals with a COVID-19 Focus. The FHRI Focus Grants: COVID-19 program will provide funding across the following three streams:

• Research Grants: high-quality COVID-19 related research projects that will generate knowledge which has the potential to be translated into improved policy and/or practice.
• Innovation Grants: high-quality COVID-19 related innovation projects that will develop new ideas, research and/or technology to create new processes, products and/or services.
• Infrastructure Grants: essential infrastructure that supports COVID-19 related research and innovation in WA.

Successful grants could include projects related to infection prevention and control, surveillance, diagnostics, therapeutics as well as direct and indirect impacts of COVID-19 across a range of health conditions.

Grants will be awarded through a competitive merit-based selection process.

Applications close: 1pm, Friday 16 October 2020.

The FHRI Focus Grants: COVID-19 Application Forms and Guidelines and Conditions are available from the new FHRI Fund website.

Any queries related to the program can be directed to the Research and Innovation Office (formerly the Research Development Unit).

The Australian Medical Research Advisory Board (AMRAB) is conducting a consultation to develop the Medical Research Future Fund (MRFF) Australian Medical Research and Innovation Priorities 2020-22 (the Priorities).

The Priorities are considered by the Minister for Health before the Commonwealth Government decides on the disbursement of funding from the MRFF. It is therefore important that the community – patients, clinicians and researchers alike – are engaged in consultation.

Further information about the consultation opportunity, including a Consultation Guidance Paper that has been prepared by AMRAB, is available via the Department of Health’s consultation hub. Public submissions can be made through the consultation hub. The process will be supported by public webinars and where necessary, targeted virtual roundtable discussions. Details and booking arrangements for the webinars will be made available on the MRFF website.

The consultation opportunity will be open until 7 October 2020.

CT:IQ is pleased to launch a series of use cases illustrating successful implementation of eConsent in Australia, aimed to be used as a guide for researchers and HRECs seeking to develop and implement eConsent.

In 2019, Chrysalis Advisory, on behalf of CT:IQ, undertook an investigation of stakeholder opinions about the benefits, risks and critical success factors for eConsent implementation, published in a 2019 report. A summary of this report has now been published as a perspective in the MJA.

Following on from this work, the need for use cases to demonstrate practical implementation of eConsent was identified and subsequently developed. The examples, which can now be accessed via the CT:IQ website, show that the use of eConsent is acceptable to HRECs and institutions and should be treated no differently to standard consent processes.

There are currently three use cases featured, including the Australian Genomics Health Alliance, Royal North Shore Hospital and Murdoch Children’s Research Institute that demonstrate:

• eConsent
• Dynamic consent
• eConsent for remote/telehealth study recruitment
• Use of video animations in clinical consent
• Paediatric Asthma Re-admissions Study

CT:IQ will continue to provide updates as the bank of use cases on the website grows over the next few months.

WAHTN, along with Australia’s other nine Research Translation Centres, under the auspices of the Australian Health Research Alliance, have come together to address priority areas for women and girls across physical and mental health and to support career advancement for women in health and medical research.

A Women’s Health Research, Translation and Impact Network (WHRTN) has been formed which has received funding of $5 million over five years from the Morrison Government, the Hon Greg Hunt MP and the Medical Research Future Fund.

This national collaboration across community, health services and academic institutions will boost national and international collaboration on women’s health, build health workforce capacity, develop leaders in women’s health, and advance research and translation to deliver impact and better health for Australian women.

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The Chief Allied Health Office of the WA Department of Health has partnered with the WA Health Translation Network this year, via two initiatives to progress early stage research and provide clinicians with time for research development. The combined value of $236,979 for these two initiatives is being delivered through the Allied Health Enabling Platform.

Congratulations to the following recipients of the 2019/20 Allied Health Early Stage Funding Grants (total grant value $128,979):

The University of Melbourne is calling for nominations for the award of The Sir William Upjohn Medal. The Sir William Upjohn Medal is awarded by the University of Melbourne in commemoration of Sir William George Dismore Upjohn (1888-1979) and is available for award every five years.

In awarding this Medal the University aims to recognise an individual’s distinguished services to medicine in Australia: services such as national leadership or reform of medical processes, systems or programs, or a seminal medical discovery, that have made a widespread impact on the Australian population by improving or protecting the health of the Australian people.

Please see the University of Melbourne’s website for more information or to make a nomination.

Nominations close: 16 October 2020.

Applications are now open for two unique Perth Biodesign programs, allowing aspiring biomedical innovators to take a hands-on, design-thinking approach to healthcare innovation.

Perth Biodesign for Medtech

Perth Biodesign for Medtech is a 6 month, part-time course running annually, in which multidisciplinary teams identify unmet clinical needs and work towards inventing a medical technology solution, whilst learning about the medical device development process.

Teams come together once a week, usually on a Wednesday evening, to learn, and put into practice, the course content delivered by course faculty and top local experts. Throughout the course, teams will have regular deliverables that will require further work outside of the weekly meetings, either online or at in-person team meetings. Previous participants estimate the workload of the course at around 8 hours per week.

Learn more and apply

Biodesign Bootcamp

Biodesign bootcamps are an accelerated two full-days of learning and applying the Biodesign methodology for those wanting to learn how to identify and validate clinical unmet needs, ideate a viable solution and translate the innovation within a complex healthcare environment.

Biodesign bootcamps are an excellent option for entrepreneurs, innovation staff and senior academics, clinicians or executives interested in the healthcare space, who cannot commit the time to completing the full Biodesign Medtech or Digital Health courses.

Learn more and register

Applications are now open for Abstract Submissions for the 13th Annual Raine Study ASM for 2020.

This years event will be hosted virtually on Friday 30 October. Abstract Submissions are to be submitted by Friday, 25 September 2020 using the Abstract Submission Form on the Raine Study website.

Once again the Raine Medical Research Foundation have kindly donated two $750 prizes for the best presentations by early career researchers and students.

For more information please visit the Raine Study website.

Over one million Australian children live with serious respiratory conditions. This is why the new Wal-yan Respiratory Research Centre is working to create healthy lungs for every child, for life.

Launched this week by WA Health Minister Hon Roger Cook MLA, the Centre is a powerhouse partnership between Telethon Kids, Perth Children’s Hospital Foundation and Perth Children’s Hospital. As a leader of paediatric respiratory research in Australia, it will contribute significantly to global efforts to improve the lives of children with respiratory conditions and their families.

The Centre’s researchers are spearheading the development of therapies that would function like an asthma vaccine, training the immune system and protecting the lining of the airways to prevent the development of childhood asthma.

Other priority projects for the Centre in the next five years include:

• The use of ‘lung on a chip’ technology to accelerate drug discovery
• Overcoming respiratory ‘superbug’ infections using naturally-occurring viruses
• Improving the poorer lung function outcomes of babies born prematurely
• The identification of key factors during pregnancy that predispose children to lung disease
• A radical re-design of clinical trials to bring medicines to kids quicker
• Narrowing the significant Indigenous respiratory health gap

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