Two projects led by The Kids Research Institute Australia have been awarded more than $2.5 million to fund innovative ideas focused, respectively, on combating persistent ear infections and investigating how dangerous fungi invade the bodies of immunocompromised people.
They were among 223 projects nationally to receive a share of $274 million under the latest round of National Health and Medical Research Council Ideas Grants, announced by Federal Health Minister Mark Butler today. Ideas Grants aim to support innovative and creative research projects addressing a specific question.
Anti-biofilm gel to treat ear infections
Dr Ruth Thornton – from the Wesfarmers Centre of Vaccines and Infectious Diseases at The Kids Research Institute Australia, and The University of Western Australia (UWA) – will lead a project which aims to make a one-drop medicine designed to prevent repeat grommet surgery for ear infections.
Almost every child will suffer an ear infection – known as otitis media (OM) – by their second birthday, with one in four experiencing chronic infections that end up requiring surgery to insert grommets.
Up to half of children who receive grommets will require further surgery due to repeat infections caused by persistent bacteria that survive in the biofilm, or glue, in kids’ ears. When hidden in biofilms, bacteria are highly resistant to antibiotics.
Dr Thornton will lead a team of researchers from The Kids, UWA and CSIRO to develop a slow-release gel-based medicine, delivered as a single dose at the time of a child’s first grommet surgery, to target the bacterial biofilm and eradicate the underlying infection.
“In this project we are developing this product so it will be able to be given during surgery, where we expect it to break down the biofilm, allowing antibiotics to work and preventing the need for repeat grommet surgery,” Dr Thornton said.
“Doing this at the time of surgery would also mean parents wouldn’t need to give their child the standard care of eardrops twice daily for five days following their child’s operation – a process that can be difficult, painful, and lead to non-compliance.”
The project, Blitz-OM: A single-dose anti-biofilm gel to effectively treat recurrent and chronic otitis media, has received $1.397 million under the Ideas Grant scheme.
Understanding how invasive fungi target weakened immune systems
Dr Luke Garratt, from the Wal-yan Respiratory Research Centre – a powerhouse partnership between The Kids Research Institute Australia, Perth Children’s Hospital and Perth Children’s Hospital Foundation – will lead a project that will study two dangerous fungi which pose a particular threat to people with immune systems weakened as a result of transplantation or cancer.
The fungi, Scedosporium and Lomentospora, have been flagged by the World Health Organization as significant emerging fungal pathogens in urgent need of research due to their ability to cause life-threatening infections and their unique resistance to frontline treatments.
“They’re tough to treat because they’re resistant to the usual anti-fungal drugs,” Dr Garratt said.
Dr Garratt, who is also an Adjunct Research Fellow with UWA, will lead a team of researchers from The Kids, UWA and Fiona Stanley Hospital to decode how the fungi interact with human cells, in a bid to identify what they produce that allows them to invade the body.
“By doing this, we will find new ways to detect and treat these challenging fungi and improve patient care,” he said. “We just know very little about these fungi and this is a huge opportunity to gain much needed insight.”
The project, Decoding Host Invasion: Mapping Secondary Metabolite Weaponry of Antifungal-Resistant Scedosporium and Lomentospora, has received $1.236 million under the Ideas Grant scheme.
Both grants will be administered through The University of Western Australia.
For more information on this round of Ideas Grants funding, see the Minister’s media release.