- Government grants $3.4 million to establish collaborative medical research centres
- New Collaboration Centres Programme Will Strengthen National and International Partnerships
- Western Australian medical and health research leaders recognised for groundbreaking work
The Cook Government has awarded $3.4 million to accelerate cutting-edge research in Western Australia into rare and undiagnosed diseases, gene therapies and lung cancer management.
The Collaborating Centres program, a new initiative of the Government’s Future Health Research and Innovation (FHRI) Fund, will develop and enhance national and international research partnerships, while putting Western Australian health and medical researchers on the global map.
Recipients of the first round of the program include clinician-led teams from Child and Adolescent Health Service (CAHS), East Metropolitan Health Service (EMHS) and North Metropolitan Health Service (NMHS).
The grant funding will enable the CAHS Rare Care Centre to establish a world-leading collaborative centre for research excellence and innovation for rare and undiagnosed diseases (RUDs) in Western Australia.
The Centre will conduct collaborative, culturally safe research to improve the lives of Western Australia’s 63,000 children and young people and their families living with RUD and connect world-leading researchers from around the world.
EMHS will establish the Collaborative Centre for Advanced Therapies (CCPAT), building on existing expertise in cell and gene manufacturing at the Royal Perth Hospital, Westmead Hospital in New South Wales, the Alfred Hospital in Victoria and the Royal Brisbane and Women’s Hospital in Queensland. This collaboration will develop a diverse range of locally manufactured cell and gene products to advance the development of new medical therapies.
NMHS will establish the Collaborative Centre for Innovative Pleural Research, building on Western Australia’s leading management of cancer pleural effusions (abnormal accumulation of fluid in the chest) through the use of innovative new catheters. The catheters allow cancer patients to receive treatment in the comfort of their own home, improving their quality of life. The new centre will enable Western Australian researchers to share and expand their expertise in the management of cancer pleural effusions and develop trials for non-cancer effusions.
In 2020, the Cook Government established the FHRI Fund, a groundbreaking fund that comprised nearly $1.8 billion held as part of the state’s sovereign wealth fund. Since then, $173 million has been committed to nearly 600 projects supporting health and medical research and innovation in Western Australia, with a further $250 million available over the next four years.
Comments attributed to Medical Research Minister Stephen Dawson:
“The Collaborating Centres program is a fantastic new initiative under the Cook Government’s highly successful FHRI Fund, which aims to provide a strong platform to advance cutting-edge health and medical research in Western Australia.
“The number and quality of applicants for the first phase of the program was very high, demonstrating the depth of Western Australia’s research talent and capability.
“It’s exciting to see such amazing research being conducted here locally and this new program aims to propel these achievements nationally and internationally.
“The grants awarded to establish these new collaborative centres will provide a solid foundation to ensure that research is self-sustaining beyond the duration of the funding programme and continues into the future.”