University of Western Australia
The Forrest Research Foundation was established in 2014 to create a world-leading collaborative centre of research and scholarship. The foundation was made possible through one of the largest-ever philanthropic donations in Australian history, by Andrew and Nicola Forrest through the Minderoo Foundation. It aims to attract outstanding doctoral students and postdoctoral fellows to Western Australia and develop their potential to address the world’s most pressing challenges through research at one of Western Australia’s five universities. Forrest Scholars aim to make a difference to people’s lives by eradicating hunger, conquering disease, protecting the planet, developing new technologies and extending the boundaries of human knowledge. Here we profile some of these trailblazers.
Ensuring babies enter the world as healthy as possible
Viruses have copped a pretty bad rap. One of UWA’s brightest young researchers, Dr Lucy Furfaro, is curious about the sub-microscopic infectors that can so terrify the world.
Dr Furfaro is a Forrest Prospect Fellow and Raine/Robson Fellow who loves babies. She would like babies; all babies, to come into the world in the best possible condition to face its challenges.
That means helping them have the benefit of “The Whole Nine Months”, in the words of the world-leading Western Australian Preterm Birth Prevention Initiative. In its first year, the rate of preterm birth was reduced by almost eight per cent. That amounts to a significant improvement in life prospects.
Although we have learned much about helping those born prematurely, the womb remains the safest and best place for us for around 37 weeks.
Dr Furfaro is working to help the safe arrival of babies by exploring the nature of what reaches the developing fetus. Precisely what is entering it? What are we being exposed to before birth?
The placental barrier is not impermeable; but microbes are not necessarily bad for us. Viruses can kill off bacteria before they make their way into the fetus.
At a time when the word “virus” is almost automatically preceded by “corona”, Dr Furfaro is engaged with a broader range of inquiry: “Germs are my life”.
At a time when the word “virus” is almost automatically preceded by “corona”, Dr Furfaro is engaged with a broader range of inquiry: “Germs are my life”.
That life, as the daughter of parents who encouraged her interests and sister of two brothers with varied interests of their own, now involves collecting waste-water and “working with grubbiness”.
She doesn’t mind getting her hands dirty, but ensures that she promptly and properly washes them immediately afterwards. In the years of the Covid-19 crisis, Dr Furfaro welcomes the renewed emphasis on the thorough washing of hands, rather than simply wafting them in the general direction of soap and water.
She stresses the vital importance of basic research, and finding out how we ensure that research helps real people now.
Dr Furfaro wanted to be a carpenter as a girl. She is practical – a builder by temperament. What she builds are chains of solutions, based on careful examination and creative thought, with a fundamental purpose in mind: helping optimise the life chances of developing human beings.
She is acutely aware of her responsibilities to future generations of researchers – to a remarkable degree, for one so young. Communication, sharing of knowledge, ensuring that promising lines of inquiry can be pursued, are vital to her work.
Dr Furfaro is reluctant to single out individuals, in a field where so many help, nurture and foster each other, but makes special mention of the work of Professor John Newnham AM, Head of the UWA Division of Obstetrics and Gynaecology based at King Edward Memorial Hospital.
The Raine Study he pioneered in 1989 began following the health of 2900 unborns (from 18 weeks of pregnancy) and of their families, for life. It was the world’s first pregnancy-focused lifetime cohort study.
Dr Furfaro is one of those advancing the cause of healthy lives. We shall hear much more of her.