Four Murdoch Children’s Research Institute (MCRI) researchers have been recognised for their child health research into improving cancer treatments, the effect of the environment on health, better understanding female infertility and reducing health inequities.

MCRI’s Associate Professor Rachel Conyers, Dr Elena Tucker, Associate Professor Suzanne Mavoa and Dr Anna Price each received a $74,000 Fostering Achievement in Research (FAIR) Fellowship from the Victorian endowment for science knowledge and innovation (veski).

The fellowships, awarded to those who narrowly missed out on National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) Investigator Grants, are designed to address major issues facing health, medicine and the environment, with MCRI to match the funding.

Associate Professor Conyers received funding to reduce the side-effects of intensive cancer treatments like chemotherapy and radiotherapy, such as damage to the heart or reproductive systems.

Image: Associate Professor Rachel Conyers

Using pharmacogenomics, which can give us clues as to how someone’s body will respond to a particular medication based on their genes, Associate Professor Conyers will explore more personalised cancer treatments that cause fewer long-term negative impacts for children and adolescents.

Associate Professor Conyers said her team would investigate whether genetics and cultural heritage could impact the way invasive or intensive cancer treatments and medications were tolerated by young patients.

Associate Professor Mavoa’s project will harness data from MCRI’s GenV project, the world’s largest study of families with babies, to investigate how neighbourhood environments affect child and adolescent health and identify interventions that could help.

Image: Associate Professor Suzanne Mavoa

“Neighbourhood environments impact many aspects of child and adolescent health including mental health, brain health, physical activity, and lung and heart health,” she said.

“We will use GenV family data combined with a digital lab of environmental measures such as climate and air pollution to identify interventions that could help city planners and clinicians to improve current environmental issues facing children.”

Dr Tucker received funding to better understand Premature ovarian insufficiency (POI), which is a leading form of female infertility in women under 40 with no comprehensive, diagnostic test.

Image: Dr Elena Tucker

“Using cutting-edge technologies, which look at genes, proteins and molecules together to understand how they work as a whole to study a large patient group, my research aims to identify genes that cause POI and develop and implement genomic testing for women with the condition.”

Dr Tucker said she hoped the test would enable patients to receive quicker and more accurate diagnoses and achieve better outcomes via personalised care.

Dr Price’s research aims to better support families in the first 2,000 days of a child’s life, focusing on what drives lifelong physical, mental and social development.

Image: Dr Anna Price

“From conception to five years, our brains develop more rapidly than any other time, and it’s an important window for promoting positive social conditions.” she said. My research works to understand how social drivers including family income and housing contribute to child health and develop solutions through Australia’s existing healthcare services.”

The project will include MCRI’s long-running evaluation of the right@home nurse home visit program and Healthier Wealthier Families, which addresses financial hardship through routine nursing appointments.

“The goal is to translate the findings into practice and help reduce childhood health inequities in Australian children,” Dr Price said.