Prof Jon Emery NHMRC Investigator Grant Success

Professor Jon Emery has had recent success with the highly competitive five-year NHMRC Investigator Grant. Prof Emery’s was one of 50 who received the grant across the University of Melbourne. With this grant, Prof Emery aims to identify causes of diagnostic delay and develop new diagnostic algorithms; test a diagnostic decision-support tool to recognise patients at increased risk of an undiagnosed cancer; and to evaluate the use of genomic tests in primary care to identify individuals at increased risk of cancer to tailor screening. This research directly maps onto new international priority areas in translational research for early detection of cancer. As for Australia, less than 50% of bowel cancers are detected early, leading to poorer survival outcomes. This research has the potential to transform approaches to detect cancer earlier in primary care, to shorten diagnostic delay in Australia and improve these numbers.