HRC invests over $1.1 million

News Release                                         
 7 September 2009

HRC invests over $1.1 million to help build international health research partnerships

More than $1.1 million has been invested by the Health Research Council of New Zealand (HRC) into three international health research collaborations.

These projects bring together New Zealand health researchers and international partners to investigate important health issues including approaches to treating melanoma, drug discovery in HIV-1 and the prevention of cerebral palsy.

The collaborations are funded through Objective 1 of the International Investment Opportunities Fund (IIOF), which focuses on enabling outstanding New Zealand researchers to build research collaborations with overseas research teams.  The fund supports applicants to engage in research activities that will produce gains for New Zealand, offer significant leverage to build New Zealand’s health research capacity, and are likely to attract international co-funding to support longer term research projects.

Each of the research proposals selected has the potential to benefit the health of New Zealanders.

Details of funding approved by the HRC Board and offered to research teams in the 2009/10 round of IIOF Objective 1 are as follows:

Developing a treatment to prevent Cerebral Palsy

24 months, $369,522

Lead international partner: Professor Sidhartha Tan, Professor of Neonatology, Department of Pediatrics, Evanston Northwestern Healthcare and Northwestern University, Evanston, IL.

Project Summary:

Cerebral palsy (CP) is a devastating condition that is very common in prematurely born infants, and for which there is no treatment. In this international collaboration we propose a systematic preclinical evaluation of the most promising drugs for reducing motor deficits following preterm hypoxia-ischaemia. Our international collaborators will use a rabbit model of acute placental insufficiency at preterm gestation to test whether agents can reduce cerebral palsy and death. In New Zealand, we will then undertake detailed surveillance in preterm fetal sheep of the promising brain protective drug (or drugs) to evaluate potential side-effects and, critically, to allow us to confirm that potential therapies are protective in a second, clinically-relevant large animal model. Partial funding has already been obtained from a US government NIH R21 grant. If successful this collaboration provides a unique opportunity for an NIH U01 application to develop promising therapies for consideration for FDA approval.

Drug discovery targeting a novel step in HIV-1 biology, and overriding gene mutations

24 months, $396,538

Lead international partner: Dr John Phillip Parisot, The Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research, La Trobe R&D Park, Victoria 3086, Australia.

Project Summary:

We have developed a new cell-based test (patented) to explore a novel drug target in HIV-1. HIV-1 uses a unique genetic mechanism to regulate synthesis of its structural and enzyme proteins in the correct amounts crucial for infectivity. Current methods for studying this mechanism are slow and use enzyme markers requiring expensive chemicals for detection.  Our test uses reporter proteins that fluoresce when energized by light, is 90% cheaper and ten-fold quicker. Preliminary drug screens showed that our system is sensitive for detecting changes at the HIV-1 target site. Importantly, it can also accurately quantify gene mutation sites in human genetic diseases. We want to test our system further at the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute High Throughput Chemical Screening Facility (WEHI-HTCS) in a new collaboration to assess its impact for identifying not only new drug compounds against HIV-1, but also drugs that can alleviate the consequence of genetic mutations.

Targeting melanoma initiation and progression: developing ABCB5 inhibitors

12 months, $333,622

Lead international partner: Professor Larry Sklar, Professor of Pathology; Director of the University of New Mexico Center for Molecular Discovery, Health Sciences Center, University of New Mexico.

ends

© Scoop Media