Research Priorities

Allergies & immune disorders

Felix Gladkoff's peanut allergy is so severe he has to take his own food to friends' birthday parties to avoid getting seriously ill.

The four-year-old was diagnosed with the allergy three years ago, meaning exposure to even the smallest amount of peanut in food can cause a severe, potentially fatal reaction.

"He has to take his own cupcake to birthday parties and we can rarely eat at restaurants. He's adapted to it now, but it would be nice if eventually there was some kind of cure," dad Michael says.

Felix is among an estimated 40 per cent of Australian children who suffer from allergic diseases, with food allergy affecting up to eight per cent.

Our researchers are undertaking a number of studies to help understand these conditions including investigating immune abnormalities that lead to allergic diseases such as asthma, eczema and food

allergy.

Felix is among 100 children with peanut allergy taking part in a study by Murdoch Childrens and The Royal Children's Hospital to help build patients' tolerance to peanuts.

If successful, the study could give hope to thousands of children with food allergies in the future.

Brain & mind

Understanding brain development and the brain's ability to function after disease or injury such as premature birth, brain injuries and mental illness is a major research focus at Murdoch Childrens.

Our researchers recently found more than a third of children born very premature displayed symptoms of social-emotional problems including anxiety and depression by the time they turned two.

We also know as many as 20 per cent of premature babies will suffer from brain and lung problems, compared with about four percent of babies born on time.

We are working with the Royal Children's and Royal Women's hospitals to study the brain and lung function and long-term health outcomes of premature babies as part of a $2.5 million grant from the National Health and Medical Research Council.

Our researchers also use a specialised magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scanner to scan brains to improve our understanding of the brain structure, function and development of premature babies as well as children with a wide range of other health conditions including stuttering, ADHD, stroke and traumatic brain injury.

Obesity

Childhood obesity has doubled since the 1980s, with one in five school children now overweight or obese. In Victoria alone, an estimated 22,000 children are seriously obese, 33,000 are obese and 220,000 are overweight.

Our research shows the rate of childhood obesity continues to grow despite government health campaigns, with the number of obese and overweight preschoolers rising by more than 8000 between 2004 and 2008.

A study published in the British Medical Journal also found current national guidelines for GPs to help children lose weight were costly and ineffective, prompting calls for improved primary health care strategies.

Our researchers are currently looking at the environmental, genetic and lifestyle-related risk factors of obesity as well as projects to prevent Type 2 diabetes and develop treatments for health complications caused by obesity.

Genetic diseases

Genetics has been a major focus at Murdoch Childrens since the Institute was established in 1986, with world-recognised achievements in chromosome related disease, metabolic diseases, neurogenetics and genetic therapy.

We currently have several projects focused on developing treatments for a group of severe genetic diseases called mitochondrial diseases. Each year about 50 children born in Australia will develop a mitochondrial disease, which destroys the cell's ability to turn food into energy, leading to problems such as delayed development, seizures, heart disease or diabetes.

Our researchers are also working in a new area of science called epigenetics, which looks at how, from the time we were in the womb onwards, genes can be turned off and on by the environment through chemical factors that surround our genes. We are studying the subtle differences in these chemical factors between twins to discover how individuals can differ independent of their DNA sequence and to determine how environmental factors such as stress and diet can be passed on from generation to generation.

Murdoch Childrens also continues to lead international efforts to find a cure for childhood cancers, with about 600 children diagnosed with cancer each year. We are currently leading the world's largest childhood cancer study, involving one million babies and research teams from 15 countries.