National Health & Medical Research Council (NHMRC) Results Fellowships and Australia/European Union Collaborative Grants Scheme 2018

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1 National Health & Medical Research Council (NHMRC) Results Fellowships and Australia/European Union Collaborative Grants Scheme 2018 The NHMRC has publically released results (embargo lifted on 11 October 2017) for the Early Career Fellowships, Practitioner Fellowships, Research Fellowships and Australia/European Union Collaborative Research Grants Scheme for funding in For this round, across the sector: 472 applications were submitted to the Early Career Fellowships Scheme. 120 were funded with a success rate of 25.4% and total funding of $38,526,110 was awarded. 388 applications were submitted to the Career Development Fellowships scheme. 61 were funded with a success rate of 15.7% and total funding of $26,660, applications were submitted to the Research Fellowships Scheme. 76 were funded with a success rate of 23.6% and total funding of $57,738,355 was awarded. 71 applications were submitted to the Practitioner Fellowships Scheme. 16 were funded with a success rate of 22.5% % and total funding of $7,724,511 was awarded 4 applications were submitted to the Australia/European Union Collaborative Research Grant Scheme. 4 were. awarded with total funding of $1,902,628 For this round, James Cook University: 1 5 Early Fellowships. 1 was awarded at $317,768 over 4 years 4 Career Development Fellowships. 2 were awarded at $862,000 over 4 years 4 Research Fellowships. 1 was awarded at $849,540 over 5 years No Practitioner Fellowships were submitted in this round 1 Australia/European Union Collaborative Research Grant Scheme. 1 was awarded at $488,914 over 2 years TOTAL FUNDS AWARDED TO JCU $2,518,222

2 Details of successful James Cook University fellowships: Early Career Fellowships Scheme App Id Chief Investigator Title $ Dr Matt Developing Core Bioinformatics $318,768 Field Capacity at AITHM Dr Matt Field Developing Core Bioinformatics Capacity at AITHM $318,768 over 4 years Cost effective next generation sequencing is now a reality, meaning the bottleneck for research projects has shifted from data generation to data analysis. Researchers at the Australian Institute of Health and Tropical Medicine (AITHM) are engaged in an increasing number of high-impact research projects that require timely access to high-throughput bioinformatics best-practices methodologies. This proposal outlines strategies to develop support for projects requiring bioinformatics within AITHM. Career Development Fellowships Dr Andreas New strategies for improved TB $431,000 Kupz vaccines Dr Andreas Kupz New strategies for improved TB vaccines $431,000 over 4 years Tuberculosis is a major global public health problem and continues to cause significant morbidity and mortality due to the low efficiency of the only licensed anti-tuberculosis vaccine, BCG. This project aims to produce novel, highly efficacious vaccination regimens against tuberculosis, especially pulmonary tuberculosis, which is currently the most difficult manifestation of infection to control. The results of this project have the potential to not only save millions of lives in the developing world but also to decrease socioeconomic burden of tuberculosis, particularly in the context of HIV coinfection Prof Stephan Karl Unravelling Plasmodium vivax transmission to mosquitoes $431,000 Professor Stephan Karl Unravelling Plasmodium vivax transmission to mosquitoes $431,000 over 4 years This project is aimed at better understanding transmission of P. vivax, the world s most widely spread malaria parasite. Using a newly established experimental platform that enables us to feed P. vivax infected blood to Anopheles farauti mosquitoes, we can start researching factors in human blood that determine P. vivax infection success, test new vaccine and drug candidates for their ability to block transmission and thus significantly advance science surrounding this neglected parasite. 2 Research Fellowships Prof Denise Doolan System-based approaches to inform the design of immunotherapies and immunodiagnostics against chronic pathogens $849,540 Professor Denise Doolan System-based approaches to inform the design of immunotherapies and immunodiagnostics against chronic pathogens $849,540 over 5 years

3 The development of effective interventions against malaria and other chronic infectious diseases is impeded by a lack of understanding of host-pathogen interactions and the mechanisms and antigenic targets underlying protective immunity. The fundamental premise of this proposal is that integrated and unbiased systems-level approaches provide an excellent framework to develop a comprehensive understanding of immune responses and identify key molecules/pathways that can be targeted for therapeutic intervention or for immunodiagnostics. Taking advantage of unique human experimental infection models and field studies, this research encompasses: (i) antigen discovery; (ii) hostpathogen immunity; (iii) vaccine engineering; and (iv) biomarker discovery. It will develop a pipeline of parasite antigens and immunomodulatory molecules that can be transitioned towards clinical development and testing, as well as identify biomarkers of disease risk that can be used for population based screening to define at-risk individuals for targeted intervention. Practitioner Fellowships Nil Australia/European Union Collaborative Research Grant Prof Denise Doolan OptiMalVax: Optimising a deployable high efficacy malaria vaccine $488,914 Professor Denise Doolan OptiMalVax: Optimising a deployable high efficacy malaria vaccine $488,914 over 2 years This project takes advantage of new vaccine technologies and antigen discovery approaches for accelerated design and development of a highly effective multi-antigen multi-stage subunit vaccine against malaria. A consortium comprising key malariologists, vaccine researchers and product developers in Europe, USA, Australia and Africa are collaborating in an innovative programme of antigen discovery science linked to rapid clinical development of new vaccine candidates. The workplan directly addresses tough problems in malaria vaccine design such as antigen choice and polymorphism as well as vaccine immunogenicity, efficacy, and durability, and employs stringent infectious challenges and functional assays to ensure biologically relevant outcomes. 3

4 Analysis of JCU activity over last rounds: Early Career Fellowships Amount$ $318,768 $318,768 0 $309,436 $609,192 JCU % 20.0% 33% 0 20% 40% NHMRC % 25.4% 24.1% 21.4% 22.4% 24.5% Career Development Fellowships Amount$ $862,000 $569, JCU % 50% 100% % 15.7% 13.3% 29.4% 29.8% 28.1% Research Fellowships Amount$ $849,540 $938, JCU % 25% 25% NHMRC % 23.6% 26.1% 24.1% 30.1% 32.4% 4 Practitioner Fellowships Amount$ 0 $569, JCU % 0 100% NHMRC % % 29.4% 29.8% 28.1%

5 Aust/European Union 1 Amount$ $488,914 JCU % 100% NHMRC % First Call for the scheme 1 100% 5

6 s Comparisons for IRU and Go8 for this round (2017 Fellowships): EARLY CAREER FELLOWSHIPS Innovative Research Universities (IRU) IRU Member James Cook University % $318,768 Charles Darwin University Flinders University Griffith University % $637,536 La Trobe University % $1,552,579 Murdoch University % $318,768 Western Sydney University Group of Eight (Go8) Go8 University of Adelaide % $3,812,448 Australian National University University of Melbourne % $4,000,694 Monash University % $5,215,766 University of New South Wales % $4,816,382 University of Queensland % $3,118,296 University of Sydney % $4,290,600 University of Western Australia % $1,606,210 6

7 CAREER DEVELOPMENT FELLOWSHIPS Innovative Research Universities (IRU) IRU Member James Cook University % $862,000 Charles Darwin University Flinders University Griffith University La Trobe University Murdoch University Western Sydney University Group of Eight (Go8) Go8 University of Adelaide % $431,000 Australian National University % $476,728 University of Melbourne % $5,303,350 Monash University % $2,723,184 University of New South Wales % $5,061,096 University of Queensland % $1,338,728 University of Sydney % $2,741,475 University of Western Australia % $431,000 7

8 RESEARCH FELLOWSHIPS Innovative Research Universities (IRU) IRU Member James Cook University % $849,540 Charles Darwin University Flinders University Griffith University % $1,556,910 La Trobe University % $782,370 Murdoch University Western Sydney University Group of Eight (Go8) Go8 University of Adelaide Australian National University % $2,197,120 University of Melbourne % $8,983,580 Monash University % $8,141,880 University of New South Wales % $3,274,625 University of Queensland % $4,985,915 University of Sydney % $5,682,505 University of Western Australia % $1,280,420 8

9 PRACTITIONER FELLOWSHIPS Innovative Research Universities (IRU) IRU Member James Cook University Charles Darwin University Flinders University Griffith University La Trobe University Murdoch University Group of Eight (Go8) Go8 University of Adelaide % $577,189 Australian National University University of Melbourne % $1,058,344 Monash University % $975,889 University of New South Wales University of Queensland University of Sydney % $2,322,898 University of Western Australia % $577,189 9