MDHS Innovator Award winners to drive the development of new diagnostics and treatments

Projects led by Professor Peter Crack, Professor Laura Downie, Dr Serena Duchi, and Associate Professor Roy Judge have been awarded a combined $1 million over two years as part of the Faculty of Medicine, Dentistry and Health Sciences’ inaugural Innovator Award.

This newly created grant award scheme provides contributions towards salary and project costs, enabling researchers to focus on their transformative health and medical research ideas and take their projects to next stage of translation. The scheme will help drive innovative research to develop and refine potential treatments and support clinical evaluation activities.

(L-R): Professor Peter Crack, Dr Serena Duchi, Professor Roy Judge and Professor Laura Downie.

Professor Peter Crack from the School of Biomedical Sciences will undertake a program of work that aims to discover effective and safe drug candidates that can reach the brain and block stimulators of interferon genes, which can cause further damage following traumatic brain injury by causing neuroinflammation.

Professor Laura Downie from the Melbourne School of Health Sciences will lead an integrated program of development-focused activity to fast-track the translation of ADMiER. This patented point-of-care device can analyse a patient’s teardrop to accurately diagnose and identify subtypes of dry eye disease, a condition for which only one in five patients currently receive an accurate diagnosis.

Dr Serena Duchi from the Melbourne Medical School will advance her GO-KART project, which aims to prevent knee osteoarthritis by treating cartilage injuries through a minimally invasive point-of-care device that delivers a bio-ink containing regenerative products to the injury site. This new method to treat cartilage damage reduces risks, recovery times, and costs compared to existing treatments.

Associate Professor Roy Judge from the Melbourne Dental School and his research team will continue to develop the Rectangular Block Implant via an independent Multicentre Clinical Trial. This implant has been designed to replace missing teeth for those who are unable to receive conventional dental implants with a particular emphasis on older patients.

Associate Professor Lauren Ayton, Associate Dean Innovation and Enterprise for the Faculty of Medicine, Dentistry and Health Sciences, anticipates these projects will deliver real impact for patients.

“The Innovator Award represents a significant investment by the faculty to harness the potential of our research community to create and refine new solutions to some really pressing health challenges,” she said.

“I congratulate Peter, Laura, Serena, and Roy on being awarded this exciting opportunity to progress their research.”

You can learn more about the faculty’s innovation and enterprise initiatives here.