MRFF Outcomes

Congratulations A/Prof Yasmin Jayasinghe and Dr Clare Whitehead both based at the Women’s, for receiving MRFF's in the latest round (Life Saving and Job Creating Medical Research). We are pleased to note that 6 of 14 awarded Clinician Researcher grants went to The University of Melbourne, and 2 of these to CIA's in our Department.

A/Prof Yasmin Jayasinghe is the CIA and was funded $2,999,970 for the project The Australian New Zealand Oncofertility Clinical Trials Network.

Many children and young people diagnosed with cancer receive treatment that renders them infertile. This is of major concern to families. This research will enable wide-scale implementation of new digital tools, guidance and models of oncofertility care across 9 Australian New Zealand Haematology Oncology (ANZCHOG) cancer centres in order to raise benchmarks of patient-centred oncofertility care. Families will receive discussion of the risks to fertility, and potential fertility preservation options (freezing of eggs sperm or gonadal tissue) in the critical window between cancer diagnosis and cancer treatment. This will offer clinicians new models of care and young cancer survivors the chance of future parenthood.

Dr Clare Whitehead is the CIA, A/Prof Brett Manley CIB and Prof Peter Davis CIC for the project Transforming Clinical Research to Improve Preterm Birth Outcome for Preterm Infants was also successful receiving funding of $ 2,642,199.

15 million babies are born preterm each year. Preterm birth is the leading cause of death and disability among children < 5 years. There is urgent need for interventions to reduce complications of prematurity and improve outcomes. Traditional trials are often resource intense and may take many years. Adaptive Platform Trials are innovative allowing multiple interventions to be evaluated simultaneously. This project will develop an Australasian Adaptive Platform Trial to Improve Preterm Birth Outcomes. The project will identify research priorities and core outcomes important to families and the health service. It will build the infrastructure and expertise required to run the Platform trial and implement the findings into clinical practice.

We are so proud of A/Prof Yasmin Jayasinghe, Dr Clare Whitehead, A/Prof Brett Manley, and Prof Peter Davis and cannot wait to see the outcomes of your research.