Research Matters – Improving lives through medical research

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Internationally recognised for its medical research, Monash University is committed to making a difference to the lives of people around the world. Monash researchers work tirelessly to find solutions to health problems affecting the community, with funding from the NHMRC providing the means to undertake this critical research.

The science of sleep

Sleep health is one of the leading topics on the national mental health agenda.

One of Associate Professor Shantha Rajaratnam’s recent NHMRC grants in this area includes a $429,025 study, now in its third year, which looks at the effects of different colours of visible light on performance and mood in individuals who have been sleep-restricted.

This study will give his research group a foundation for their most recent NHMRC project; a $682,875 randomised controlled trial the efficacy of a novel light-exposure intervention to improve alertness and performance in night shift workers.

“This NHMRC project grant has given us the opportunity to establish a model for daytime sleepiness and novel methods for assessing drowsiness, with which we can now test a range of different interventions, including the effect of light exposure,” Associate Professor Rajaratnam says. “The project has employed a post-doctoral fellow from the UK, Dr Tracey Sletten, and is providing excellent training opportunities.”

Monash researchers uncovering cancer secrets

In order for an organism to grow and develop, the cells that make up the tissues and organs need to undergo a process of cellular division, where individual cells grow and then divide into two cells. During this process the entire genome needs to be replicated and divided equally into two daughter cells. Specific and intricate mechanisms known as ‘checkpoints’ exist to ensure that division occurs in timely and precise manner and that the DNA is accurately replicated and segregated. In cancer, such mechanisms are perturbed resulting in uncontrollable growth and tumour development.

A team of Monash University researchers has uncovered the role of a family of enzymes in the mutation of benign or less aggressive tumours into more aggressive, potentially fatal cancers in a $493,500 NHMRC funded project. Lead by Associate Professor Tony Tiganis from the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, their work showed that the enzymes known as protein tyrosine kinases (PTKs) had a greater role than previously thought in the progression of human tumours.

“We already know that the constitutive activation of PTKs is associated with the development of several types of aggressive cancers, including colon, breast and lung cancers,” Associate Professor Tiganis said. “What we have discovered is that activated PTKs can interfere with the process of cellular division and cell cycle checkpoints and contribute to the acquisition of mutations to promote cancer cell survival, growth and progression into more aggressive disease. The more we can learn about how tumours develop, the more we are able to prevent their growth in the future.”

Their studies provide novel insight into mechanisms by which PTKs may perturb cellular division and cell cycle checkpoints and contribute to genomic instability and tumour development.

The health effects of drinking rainwater

With Australia increasingly affected by drought, and the use of home rainwater tanks growing, there is a popular perception that rainwater is safe for drinking. But most health departments around Australia don’t endorse the consumption of untreated rainwater except in cases where there is no tap water supply.
A Monash team led by Dr Karin Leder – the head of the Monash Infectious Diseases Epidemiology Unit – and including Dr Martha Sinclair, Associate Professor Andrew Forbes and Dr David Cunliffe, received a $844,313 NHMRC grant in 2006 to research a key public health question: what are the health effects of drinking rainwater?
The team enrolled 300 families from Adelaide that already drank unfiltered rainwater, and placed real water filters into half of the kitchens and dummy filters into the others. The participants maintained a health diary for 12 months, particularly focusing on symptoms of gastroenteritis.
“With the base funding of an NHMRC grant, our research team also then had the opportunity to leverage this funding in order to obtain grants for other side studies. This is a huge benefit. We secured some additional funding to look at the water quality in the tanks,” says Associate Professor Leder.
The main analysis from the grant, which will be published in 2009, will look at whether there is a difference in the rates of gastroenteritis between the two groups.

$5.39 million grant for heart and kidney research

Monash University medical researcher Professor Henry Krum, from the Department of Epidemiology and Preventive Medicine, received a $5.39 million Program Grant from the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) to study the prevention and treatment of chronic heart and kidney disease.
The five-year grant enables Professor Krum to investigate the best methods to prevent, detect and treat chronic heart and kidney disease, a condition that affects thousands of Australians every year. Professor Krum’s research will specifically identify patients at high risk for future development of the disease, where early intervention with drugs may reduce or prevent the development of new heart failure.
Additionally, Professor Krum will analyse the effectiveness of novel drugs, devices and stem cell therapies to treat patients currently suffering with chronic heart and kidney disease. Professor Krum’s research will also focus on the effect of heart failure on the kidney and vice-versa via early diagnosis and treatment strategies.

For more information please visit: www.monash.edu/research