Content
NHMRC Enabling Grants Round 4 Model Biological Systems
Enabling grants assist Australian researchers to undertake high quality, world-class research by providing support for specific facilities and/or activities that will enhance the national health and medical research effort. Enabling grants are subject to the principles of excellence, an open and competitive application process, time-limited support and the potential for self-sustainability over the longer term.
This fourth round of the Enabling Grants funding scheme is supporting facilities to supply model biological systems which facilitate high quality research in the health and medical sciences.
The fourth round of Enabling Grants was advertised in December 2005 resulting in 15 expressions of interest being submitted. After assessment by the Enabling Grants Panel, 11 applicants were invited to submit a full application. One applicant withdrew from the process.
After assessment of full applications, 6 applications have been successful.
[top]
Details of Recommended Enabling Grants for Funding to Commence in 2007
Australian Capital Territory
1. Title of Project: Australian Drosophila Biomedical Research Support Facility
Chief Investigator: Professor Robert Saint
Institute:Australian National University
Funding: $1000000 over 5 years
Project description:
Breakthroughs in biomedical research frequently come from the study of model organisms, one of the most important of which is the vinegar fly, Drosophila melanogaster. In Australia, Drosophila is used in biomedical research with a particular focus on understanding processes that result in human cancer or are associated with birth defects or inherited diseases. Drosophila-based research is funded by bodies such as the Anti-Cancer Foundation, the NHMRC and the National Institutes of Health of the USA. This proposal seeks to establish infrastructure support for Drosophila research in the form of a central collection of key research stocks, a centralized facility for the importation of genetically defined stocks and a facility for the generation of transgenic Drosophila for use in biomedical research.
[top]
New South Wales
2. Title of Project: The National NHMRC Baboon Colony
Chief Investigator: A/Professor Annemarie Hennessy
Institute:Royal Prince Alfred Hospital
Funding: $600000 over 5 years
Project description:
The National NHMRC Baboon colony provides access to large non-human primates to support Australia’s research efforts in diverse scientific areas around the country. These include diabetes research (kidney involvement and prevention of kidney damage, nerve damage and eye damage); treatment options inlcuding gene therapy of blood/bone-marrow cancers; understandng pregnancy changes in blood pressure and the causes of hypertension (high blood pressure) in pregnancy; identification of new techniques for analyis of brain function; the effects of aging on liver function especially with regards to drug metabolism; new therapies for transplantation which would allow more rational and lower/safer drug use for transplant patients; breaking down the barriers to animal-to-human transplantation through assessment of safety and development of new techniques; behavioural aspects of fertility management; vaccine development; development of oral vaccination; the nature of wound healing.
[top]
Queensland
3. Title of Project: Australian Zebrafish Phenomic Facility
Chief Investigator: A/Professor Andrew Perkins
Institute:The University of Queensland
Funding: $1500000 over 5 years
Project description:
including:
- adults are relatively small, so housing is cheap
- eggs are transparent, so early developmental processes can be visualized easily
- development is rapid - organs are made in 1-7 days
- zebrafish are vertebrates and thus have a gene complement very similar to humans
- large numbers of eggs are produced each week from a single mother, aiding experimentation
- ENU mutagenesis screens have generated thousands of useful mutants, including an increasing number that accurately model human genetic diseases
- high-resolution imaging of RNA and protein expression in whole embryos is easy
- drugs and chemicals can be easily tested for activities in zebrafish by adding them to the water
Because of these attributes, zebrafish are becoming the model organism of choice for the study to human development and disease - indeed, the zebrafish field is growing at three times the rate of the mouse field.
The international biomedical community has invested very heavily in infrastructure to aid the zebrafish community in realising the potential of this model. In Australia we have very strong basic research teams whom have embraced zebrafish mdoels. However, we lag behind other parts of the world in that, as yet, we have not had much specific funding allocated to animal model infrastructure. This Enabling Grant will build unique infrastructure by bringing together the zebrafish community with two areas in which Australia is very strong - genomics and biodiversity.
This will result in a greatly enhanced ability to determine how genes work, and a pipeline for screening Australia’s rich source of natural products and chemical libraries for activities against common human diseases such as cancer, dementia, and muscle diseases using zebrafish models.
[top]
Victoria
4. Title of Project: Australian Centre for Vertebrate Mutation Detection (ACVMD)
Chief Investigator: Professor Douglas Hilton
Institute:The Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research
Funding: $1600000 over 5 years
Project description:
Over the last 20 years, generation and analysis of genetically modified animals has proven to be an important step in the transition from in vitro studies of gene function to in vivo studies and eventually clinical research. The remarkable parallels between the human, mouse and zebrafish genomes means that there are now many examples of mutations that cause or modify disease in humans, and which lead to similar phenotypes when present in mice and zebrafish. Until recently, the prime method of introducing mutations into specific genes of interest in the mouse (although still unavailable in the fish) was via homologous recombination, and the principal classes of mutations induced were large deletions or insertions. This type of mutation rarely occurs in humans. Rather, point mutations and single-nucleotide polymorphisms are the prevalent form of genetic variation. An alternative approach to the development of mouse models with the more relevant point mutations is TILLING (Targeting Induced Local Lesions IN Genomes). The goal of this Enabling Grant is to make TILLING technology accessible to the Australian research community and in doing so promote movement of research from the in vitro setting into animal models of disease.
5. Title of Project: National Non-human Primate Breeding and Research Facility
Chief Investigator: Mr Stephen Marshall
Institute:Monash University
Funding: $2500000 over 5 years
Project description:
Some biomedical research is best undertaken on primates, in order to allow the greatest relevance to understanding health and disease in humans. Examples of such research include studies into diseases like HIV/AIDS and much of the research into understanding the human brain and nervous system.
The NHMRC, through its Animal Welfare Committee, has taken an international leadership position in ensuring that any non-human primates used for biomedical research are bred and housed in the best possible facilities and looked after with the highest level of care available. To ensure this quality of care, it is NHMRC policy to only use animals that have been bred and reared specifically for research purposes.
The National Non-Human Primate Breeding and Research Facility, hosted by Monash University, ensures that Australian community has access to macaque monkeys and marmosets to carry out research under the highest quality conditions. Additionally the colonies will provide a key resource in any national response to pandemics and bioterrorism for vaccine and response development.
6. Title of Project: Australian Mouse Brain Mapping Consortium
Chief Investigator: Professor David Reutens
Institute: Monash University
Funding: $1840000 over 5 years
Project description:
We propose to establish the Australian Mouse Brain Mapping Consortium which is a national network of facilities allowing Australian researchers to better characterise mouse models of neurological diseases such as Alzheimer’s Disease and stroke. Just as accurate maps were key to the voyages of geographic discovery in the 17th and 18th century, improved methods of mapping structural and functional changes in the brain of mouse models of neurological disease will be key to discovery in the neurosciences in the 21st century. For the Consortium the cartographic tools will be magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), microscopy and sophisticated computational methods of mapping brain structure and function. Participants in the Consortium are internationally recognised leaders in brain imaging based at Monash University, the Howard Florey Institute, the Prince of Wales Medical Research Institute and the Centre for Magnetic Resonance and the Queensland Brain Institute, University of Queensland.
[top]