Five projects from The University of Western Australia have received funds from Channel 7 Telethon Trust to improve health outcomes for children, from making anaesthesia safer to researching immune disfunction, improving auditory processing, preventing asthma and recruiting for a generational study.
Dr Catherine Rinaldi, from UWA’s Centre for Microscopy, Characterisation & Analysis, received funding for a Spectral Flow Cytometer.
The equipment will help research into immune dysfunction of childhood burns survivors and disease relapse in children with leukemia.
“It will increase the number of parameters which can be analysed in a single sample, which for paediatric patients are often very small and incredibly precious, allowing researchers to obtain high-resolution single-cell data to aid their research,” Dr Rinaldi said.
Professor Britta Regli-von Ungern Sternberg, from UWA’s Medical School, received funds to continue the development of a pre-procedural chewable for children fasting before surgery.
Professor Regli-von Ungern-Sternberg – who has created a hub for paediatric anaesthesia research in WA – is the foundation Chair of Paediatric Anaesthesia at UWA, leader of the Perioperative Medicine Team at The Kids Research Institute Australia and a specialist paediatric anaesthetist at Perth Children’s Hospital.
“One of my key goals is to ensure paediatric anaesthesia is designed specifically for the unique needs of children,” Professor Regli-von Ungern-Sternberg said.
Professor of Microbiology Mark Nicol, from UWA’s School of Biomedical Sciences, received funds to study how modifying respiratory tract bacteria might reduce the risk of asthma in children.
“Research into how respiratory bacteria promote or reduce the risk of asthma in children can help us understand why children develop asthma and give us clues to how to prevent asthma,” Professor Nicol said.
“Our final aim is to develop new probiotic interventions which can reduce the risk of asthma in children.”
Funding has been awarded to the Raine Study’s Scientific Director, Associate Professor Rebecca Glauert, from UWA’s School of Population and Global Health, to help recruit the next generation of Raine Study participants.
The Raine Study has tracked the health of almost 3,000 young adults and their parents since they were 18 weeks in-utero between 1989 and 1991.
“The new funding will enable all current and future children born to the original study to be recruited, making it the first three-generation pregnancy cohort in the world, and will provide unparalleled opportunities for researchers to examine the lifestyle, genetic and environmental impacts of health and wellbeing,” Associate Professor Glauert said.
Dr Robyn Choi, a senior lecturer in Audiology at UWA’s School of Human Sciences, received a grant to investigate if exercise on its own or with music can help children with Central Auditory Processing Disorder.
Dr Choi said children with auditory processing difficulties had normal hearing but had trouble recognising and interpreting what they heard, which often made schoolwork difficult and stressful.
“We want to understand the effect of rhythmic exercise on auditory processing ability and use the results to develop new treatments that are engaging and accessible,” Dr Choi said.
Telethon and UWA channel the goodwill and philanthropy of the community to enable life-changing research which is improves the lives and health outcomes of children locally and globally.
UWA researchers are now focused on putting their research into action to make a difference for the children of WA and are grateful to the community for the support of Telethon.
Image above: Dr Robyn Choi, Associate Professor Rebecca Glauert, Professor Britta Regli-von Ungern Sternberg, Dr Catherine Rinaldi and Professor Mark Nicol.