Discover the stories behind Australia’s leading health and medical research in our InFocus articles.
Through compelling stories, we highlight the achievements of researchers driving innovation and improving health outcomes. InFocus celebrates excellence and impact across diverse fields of science and medicine.
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Depression is the most common psychiatric disorder and the largest contributor to global disability and yet one third of people diagnosed with depression are refractory to treatment.
Dr Riley Batchelor is a fellow in interventional cardiology at The Royal Melbourne Hospital and The Alfred Hospital and is a PhD candidate at Monash University’s School of Public Health and Preventive Medicine. An early career clinician researcher, Dr Batchelor's research explores the management of cardiac emergencies, including acute coronary syndrome, cardiogenic shock, and extends to extracorporeal life support and advanced heart failure.
Professor Tammy Hoffmann is a Professor of Clinical Epidemiology, specialising in clinical epidemiology and health services research. Her research career has focused on enabling evidence based healthcare so that patients receive effective and patient centred care. This includes enhancing the generation, synthesis, and reporting of rigorous evidence, improving evidence useability and implementation, and promoting shared decision making between clinicals and patients.
Yvette Roe is a proud Njikena Jawuru woman from the West Kimberley and Professor of Indigenous Health at Charles Darwin University. Yvette is also Director of the Molly Wardaguga Research Institute for First Nations Birth Rights. With a career spanning over 35 years in Indigenous health, Yvette has dedicated her life’s work to amplifying Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander voices in efforts to achieve their aspirations. Here is where she has seen the impact that research can have, driving her motivation to make more change for the generations moving forward.
Initiated by a NHMRC Project Grant in 2014, Professor Danielle Mazza’s (Monash University) journey towards creating the SPHERE Centre of Research Excellence (CRE) has gone from strength to strength in the years following. SPHERE’s mission, focused on fundamental reproductive rights, aims to drive better sexual and reproductive health outcomes for Australian women through primary care.
Professor Helen Marshall AM is the Professor of Vaccinology and an NHMRC Leadership Fellow at The University of Adelaide, and the Clinical Research Director at the Women’s and Children’s Health Network in South Australia. Professor Marshall’s research area focuses on preventing life threatening infections in children and young people through improving immunisation effectiveness, safety and impact. Her main focus throughout her extensive research career has been the prevention of meningococcal disease, leading national clinical trials to assess the safety and effectiveness of a meningococcal B vaccine.
Recipient of the 2024 NHMRC Elizabeth Blackburn Investigator Grant Award for Leadership in Clinical Medicine and Science, Professor Carol Hodgson, is a specialist intensive care physiotherapist and clinical trialist. With expertise in long term outcomes after critical illness, Professor Hodgson heads the Division of Clinical Trials and Cohort Studies in the School of Public Health and Preventative Medicine at Monash University, researching how we can improve the quality of survival after critical illness.
Science, technology, engineering, and mathematics are deeply interconnected fields that often work together to solve real world problems and drive innovation. Integration of these different fields is crucial for addressing global health challenges and has also led to Professor Shaun Gregory’s success.
'Insights into the lived experience of people managing chronic conditions can strengthen research.'
'Research can't happen without consumers and communities. Having them involved in research gives valuable insight for research institutions, leading to better health outcomes – because research is about people.'
National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children’s Day is a day all Australians are urged to celebrate Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children and learn about the impact that culture, family and community plays in the life of every child.
'Involving consumers in research provides insights that can help plot the path towards a cure. Tailoring their role to fit specific projects helps research remain relevant and focused on achieving the best outcomes.'
'At its core, research is about people and when people get involved, we move faster towards breakthroughs, driving better health outcomes for everyone.'
Around 2,000 Australians are diagnosed with brain cancer each year and survival rates remain low.
For researchers Professor Misty Jenkins AO (WEHI and The Brain Cancer Centre) and Professor Matt Dun (University of Newcastle and the Mark Hughes Foundation), they’re just scratching the surface on what's possible in brain cancer research as we collectively move towards finding a cure for this insidious disease.
'This isn’t just about good intentions, it’s a chance to change how we do things together. Because if we want research that changes lives, it has to be grounded in real life and lived experience.'
The Guunu-maana (Heal) Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health Program at The George Institute for Global Health drives meaningful, ethical research and advocacy to transform the health and wellbeing of Indigenous peoples and communities. Recipient of the 2025 NHMRC Research Quality Biennial Award, Guunu-maana is committed to research quality, being led by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander ways of knowing, being and doing to generate evidence that privileges Indigenous knowledges and research quality within the field.
'NHMRC believes consumer and community involvement is essential for high quality research, and we know that research where the consumers and the community are involved right from the beginning is better research and has better outcomes and more impact.'
How do researchers effectively involve consumers and the community in their research?
Commonly referred to as a ‘second brain’, the role of the gut extends beyond being a digestor of food and drink. In fact, research has demonstrated time and time again the profound partnership between the gut and the brain, and the range of actions elicited by the chemical factory that is our gut microbiome. The gut-brain-axis operates through several pathways and chemical signals that have an influence over our mood, stress levels and cognitive function. So, with the support of the 100 trillion microbes that live within the human digestive system, Australian researchers are discovering how we can improve mental health conditions through diet.
As nutritional and psychological sciences advance, the evidence grows that diet is not only vital for physical health but also plays a significant role in mental wellbeing. While the burgeoning field of Nutritional Psychiatry shows correlations between not only what we eat and how we feel and behave, there is still so much to explore.
'We work a lot with families, babies, pregnancy and young people, and our goal is to see them flourish or to do research that can move them towards that trajectory of flourishing and not just always surviving.'
Professor Emily Banks AM, recipient of the 2025 NHMRC Outstanding Contribution Award, is a public health physician and epidemiologist working towards improving health and healthcare, at an individual and population level. With interests spanning chronic disease, tobacco control, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health and healthy ageing, Professor Banks’s extensive research into population health is changing public behaviours, guiding healthcare professionals and having a significant impact in the community.
Signaling the arrival of the digital revolution, artificial intelligence (AI) technologies are increasingly appearing within Australia’s health system. From diagnostics to clinical practice, digitisation of healthcare is promising to enhance delivery by supporting workforce capability, enabling better patient engagement and promoting health literacy and self-management of health conditions. Yet while our appetite for AI and its potential in being a safe, ethical, equitable and effective tool has improved with time, a lot remains unknown.
Ngiyampaa/Wongaibon social epidemiologist and recipient of the 2023 NHMRC David Cooper Clinical Trials and Cohort Studies Award, Professor Raymond Lovett has focused his career on improving Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health. As an Associate Director of Yardhura Walani (Australian National University) and Director of Mayi Kuwayu: The national study of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander wellbeing, Professor Lovett’s research has influenced policy at state and national levels, as well as empowered communities at the local level. He is now aiming to take this to the global stage through the development of a world-first Indigenous wellbeing index.
Recipient of the 2024 NHMRC Peter Doherty Investigator Grant Award (Emerging Leadership), Dr Ziad Nehme is a paramedic-scientist with expertise in prehospital emergency care and resuscitation research. With a focus on early response to out-of-hospital cardiac arrest patients, Dr Nehme is targeting improvements in early recognition and activation of emergency services, accelerating treatments through community-based care, and enhancing the evidence-base in resuscitation.
Recipient of the 2025 NHMRC Consumer Involvement Award, Professor James St John is a translational neuroscientist specialising in the creation and delivery of therapies to repair injuries and diseases of the nervous system. He has driven the development of a comprehensive consumer involvement program to design and create a cell transplantation therapy for repairing chronic spinal cord injury which is now progressing to a clinical trial.
When Professor Fabienne Mackay stepped into the role of Director and CEO at QIMR Berghofer in late 2020, she expected challenges—navigating a global pandemic, leading a major organisational restructure, and steering a world-class research institute through an evolving funding landscape. What she did not anticipate was facing one of the most significant cases of research misconduct in Australian history.
Professor Philip Batterham, recipient of the 2025 NHMRC Peer Review Excellence Award (senior/experienced category), exemplifies what it means to be a fair, transparent and enthusiastic peer reviewer. Abiding by our Principles of Peer Review, Professor Batterham has continued to show an unrelenting commitment to providing rigorous assessment of applications for grant funding.
Recipient of the 2024 NHMRC Fiona Stanley Synergy Grant Award, Professor Marie-Liesse Asselin-Labat is investigating how cancer evades the immune system and how immunotherapies and cancer vaccines can be enhanced to improve treatment outcomes. Professor Asselin-Labat PharmD, PhD, is a Division Head at WEHI, leading a team that studies the interactions between immune and tumour cells in lung cancer, and how external factors can trigger the disease and treatment response.
A new era of research that promises to uncover novel information on the physiology of the human vagus nerve is unfolding right before our eyes.
Associate Professor Louise Cheng, recipient of the 2024 NHMRC Marshall and Warren Ideas Grant Award, is a group leader at the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre and the Department of Anatomy and Physiology at the University of Melbourne. Her lab utilises the fruit fly (Drosophila) to study how tumours grow at the expense of other tissues in cancer cachexia- a metabolic syndrome affecting up to 80% of people with advance cancer.
Recipient of the 2024 NHMRC Marshall and Warren Innovation Award, Associate Professor Garron Dodd, is globally acknowledged as a top authority in metabolic neuroscience. His research led out of the Metabolic Neuroscience Laboratory at the University of Melbourne has been pivotal in advancing metabolic health both in Australia and internationally, aiming to create innovative therapies for obesity and type-2 diabetes.
Associate Professor Arutha Kulasinghe, recipient of the 2025 NHMRC Science to Art Award, is bringing together the rigour of heath and medical research with aesthetically powerful art. With a focus on cutting edge spatial biology and genomic techniques, Associate Professor Kulasinghe is dedicated to unlocking the secrets of individual cell interactions, leading to personalised treatments for several diseases, including cancer.
As of 2025, it is estimated that approximately 433,300 Australians are living with dementia, and approximately 1.3 million Australians were living with diabetes in 2022, which equates to roughly 5.3% of the population.
World Cancer Day, observed annually on 4 February, raises awareness about cancer, encourages its prevention, and mobilises action to address the global cancer epidemic.
The United Nations (UN) International Day of Persons with Disabilities promotes community awareness, understanding and acceptance of the estimated 1.3 billion people with disability worldwide and to celebrate their achievements.
When it comes to individual health and wellbeing, differences between sex and gender matter and the more consideration that we give to these differences, the more we can improve health outcomes for everyone.
NHMRC is committed to improving the health of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples through funding research of the highest quality, integrity and excellence. We also encourage applications across our grant funding program that address Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health.
Did you know that breast cancer is the second most common cancer to cause death in women? In Australia, 1 in 7 women will be diagnosed with breast cancer in their lifetime.
There’s an area of health and medical research, where scientific discoveries are made and are accompanied by artistic imagery that holds both aesthetic power and major promise for further breakthroughs. This area lies at the intersection of science and art.
Cardiovascular disease is the world’s number one killer.
On a national scale, coronary heart disease is the leading single cause of disease burden in Australia and causes 11% of all deaths, sparking a real need to make transformative improvements in cardiovascular health management for all Australians.
Australia, like many other countries, is facing increasing rates of mental disorders and substance use. Globally, substance use, depression and anxiety disorders are among the leading causes of disease burden in young people. Yet they are treated in isolation, stalling discovery, prevention and treatment.
Hysterectomy is the most common major gynaecological procedure Australian women will require in their lifetimes. Yet, up to 2 in 10 patients have developed severe complications following outdated open surgery.
An investment of $60 million will support researchers to pursue collaborative research that aims to improve health outcomes by translating health and medical research into policy and/or practice funded through the National Health and Medical Research Council’s (NHMRC) Centre of Research Excellence (CRE) scheme.
National Science Week is an annual celebration that promotes and encourages interest in STEMM and acknowledges the contributions of Australian scientists to our ever-growing world of knowledge.
In this Speaking of Science webinar held during National Science Week (10 August – 18 August 2024), we were joined by the inspirational cell biologist and Laboratory Head at WEHI and the University of Melbourne, Professor Shalin Naik. Professor Naik is well versed in communicating complex science concepts across to the public in more simple ways where possible, and without belittling the important work that underlies it. In this webinar, he did just that!
Knowledge gained through research underpins improvements in Australia's health and medical services. This research can be fundamental or can be applied, directly addressing clinical problems, public policy, quality of life and environmental health issues or the provision of health services.
Professor Patrick Sexton is the Professor of Pharmacology at the Monash Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences and is the Director at the ARC Centre for Cryo-electron Microscopy of Membrane Proteins. Professor Sexton is a leader in progressing our understanding of G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs), particularly allosteric modulation and biased agonism, and applying cryo-EM to study structure and dynamics of GPCRs. He is a Clarivate Analytics highly cited researcher and an elected Fellow of the British Pharmacological Society (BPS). Professor Sexton is also the co-founder of Septerna Inc and DACRA Tx and has been the recipient of many awards for his scientific contributions that have had major impacts on biological chemistry research.
Professor Yvonne Cadet-James, the pioneering researcher, academic, mentor, registered nurse and midwife is celebrating a 25-year legacy of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health research at the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC).
Associate Professor Odette Pearson is of Eastern Yalanji and Torres Strait Islander descent and coleads the Aboriginal Health Equity Theme, South Australian Health and Medical Research Institute. Her research focus is improving chronic disease and ageing outcomes of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples through policy and guideline development and implementing and evaluating real world health and social interventions. Aboriginal leadership, governance and community and cross sector partnerships are foundations of her research. A/Prof Pearson has received the Lowitja Institute Patricia Anderson Leader in Aboriginal Research (2023), UniSA Alumini Award for Research in Aboriginal Health (2022) and The Diane Ranck, SAHMRI award for Leadership in Research (2022).
For the 30th anniversary of International Men’s Health Week (10–16 June 2024), NHMRC shined an important light on key issues impacting the health and wellbeing of Australian men and boys, focusing on the 3 pillars of health: physical, mental and emotional.