Dr David Stroud awarded prestigious NHMRC Investigator Grant

Congratulations to Dr David Stroud on the award of a prestigious NHMRC Investigator Grant

It is a great pleasure for me to congratulate Bio21’s Dr David Stroud on the award of a $1.6m NHMRC Investigator grant. These grants are very prestigious fellowships that include a research support package and are highly sought after.

David’s grant is entitled “Developing a multi-omics platform for the diagnosis of mitochondrial disease”. The funding will support ongoing work in his lab to ‘mainstream’ proteomics into the diagnosis of rare diseases. Rare diseases, such as mitochondrial disease, are collectively suffered by up to 2 million Australians. While genomic technologies like whole genome sequencing have transformed diagnostic outcomes only half of patients typically receive a diagnosis. These patients, often young children, wait years for a diagnosis, delaying access to appropriate therapies and in the meantime being subjected to numerous invasive tests.

David says: “The main challenge in increasing diagnostic yield is the shortlisting of the hundreds of mutations detected through sequencing in a given individual and performing functional follow-up to confirm each variants pathogenicity. This project will continue the development of proteomics as single functional test to ‘rule them all’ with a goal of proteomics joining modern genomic technologies in routine diagnostic use.” 

 This announcement follows the news two months ago that David was part of a team including Bio21’s Dr Diana Stojanovski that were awarded a $3m MRFF Genomics Futures Health Mission grant: “Mitochondrial Diagnostic Network for Genomics and Omics”.

 Bio21 and the University, together with its partners, have made a major investment in its platforms to ensure access to cutting edge equipment and an environment where researchers can flourish. So, we are particularly proud of David, as a major user of our Mass Spectrometry and Proteomics Facility, to have received this great recognition. Well done!

 In writing this email I know there are some Bio21 members who missed out in this latest round. We all know there is insufficient funding for NHMRC meaning the success rates are way too low to be sensible. I am hoping the Bio21 environment will provide the support you need as you gather your strength for the next round.

Regards

Michael Parker

Director, Bio21 Institute