Two hundred and twenty-three innovative and creative projects will share in $274 million to address specific questions in health and medical research from discovery to implementation through the National Health and Medical Research Council’s (NHMRC) Ideas Grants scheme.
Ideas Grants support researchers, at all careers stages and across all areas of research, to work together to address specific research questions.
Successful recipients will be supported to undertake new and important research across a diverse range of health and medical challenges to deliver discoveries that improve the health of Australians.
Associate Professor Pilar Blancafort of the University of Western Australia aims to characterise a new subset of aggressive ovarian cancers, uncover new molecular players involved in the expansion of therapy-resistant cells, and develop targeted therapies for ovarian, breast, and lung cancer.
Dr Mitchell Lawrence from Monash University is taking a new approach to treating late-stage prostate cancer by using high doses of testosterone (Bipolar Androgen Therapy). Dr Lawrence and his research team will test whether this approach can be used earlier in treatment to actively target tumour progression and to simultaneously preserve patient quality of life.
Charles Sturt University researcher, Dr Brian Sengstock, is aiming to identify the barriers that young men living in regional, rural and remote Australia experience in accessing pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) medication. It is expected that this project will lead to the implementation of a peer-led, health-based intervention to facilitate PrEP adoption among 18–25 year-olds who may be at risk of HIV infection, including gay, bisexual, queer and other men who have sex with men.
Associate Professor Isuru Ranasinghe from the University of Queensland will lead a research program to examine outcomes of elective hospital procedures using nationwide linked data. This new approach aims to inform quality improvement efforts by implementing methods to routinely measure outcomes and influence policy and practice changes to incentivise safer and more effective health care.
Further information on the 2024 Ideas Grants projects can be downloaded on NHMRC’s Outcomes of funding rounds webpage.
Quotes attributable to NHMRC CEO Professor Steve Wesselingh:
“NHMRC’s Ideas Grant scheme is unique in the way that it focusses assessment on innovative ideas that could be groundbreaking in answering health and medical-related questions.
“This funding opportunity also supports creativity, which I often think is overlooked when it comes to science, giving our researchers the opportunity to challenge existing paradigms and think outside of the box.
“The future prospects of research-driven health and medical innovation is something I am very passionate about and I’m excited to see the impacts of these ideas in the coming years.”
