2025 Ideas Grants

2025 Ideas Grants is sponsored by National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC). Supports innovative research projects addressing specific health and medical questions across all areas of research.

2025 NHMRC Ideas Grant success - Hudson Institute of Medical Research Skip to content 2025 NHMRC Ideas Grant success 2025 NHMRC Ideas Grant success 5 January 2026 By Rob Clancy , staff writer Aa Change text size A Change text size to small A Change text size to normal A Change text size to large L-R: Associate Professor Daniel Gough, Dr Ina Rudloff, Professor Graeme Polglase, Dr Nicole de Weerd, Associate Professor Kate Lawlor, Professor Elizabeth Hartland AM, Professor Paul Hertzog Hudson Institute research has been recognised in this year’s National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) Ideas Grants, with seven projects receiving funding.

Grants totalling $13. 4 million will be shared by the successful applicants, for research projects addressing areas of medical need, ranging from newborn health to viral and bacterial infections. Hudson Institute’s success rate in this grant round was 16% – approximately double the national average – meaning many excellent projects were unsuccessful, illustrating how competitive this funding is.

Redefining signalling to integrate emerging STAT3 activities Associate Professor Daniel Gough NHMRC Ideas Grant – 4 years Co-investigators: Dr Daniel Garama, Dr Sungyoung Shin, Dusan Bogunovic The ability of a cell to respond to its environment is determined by intracellular protein signalling networks. The fidelity of which is essential to maintain tissue balance and avoid diseases.

However, we now appreciate that our current models are far too simplistic and must be re-defined. In this study we take advantage of recent technological advances to address this shortfall. Our data will generate new models to understand disease and will be publicly released as a web-based application.

Integrating immunomodulatory and probiotic strategies to prevent necrotising enterocolitis NHMRC Ideas Grant – 4 years Co-investigators: Prof Marcel Nold, Ms Sara Di Simone, Dr Steven Shian Chin Cho and A/Prof Ramesh Nataraja.

Associate Investigators: Prof Claudia Nold, A/Prof Sam Forster and Dr Michelle Chonwerawong Modern intensive care improved the outcome of extremely preterm infants, but now they face a severe gut disease, claiming the lives of up to 65% of affected babies. A specific treatment or cure is not available, despite decades of research.

We have advanced our groundbreaking discoveries of dysregulated immune functions and abnormal microbes involved in the disease thanks to the support of the Norman Beischer Foundation . Now, we will investigate novel strategies to balance the immune system and gut microbes to provide the first treatment for our tiny patients.

Reducing Cerebrovascular Injury in Extremely Preterm Infants Professor Graeme Polglase NHMRC Ideas Grant – 4 years Co-investigators: Miss Sharmony Kelly, Dr Robert Galinsky, Prof James Pearson, Prof Georg Schmolzer and Ms Alison Thiel The preterm brain is particularly vulnerable to injury resulting in bleeding, which increases the risk of death and disability.

We have established that the way we provide newborn resuscitation at birth greatly increases the risk of bleeding in the preterm brain. Using a world-first imaging technique at the Australian Synchrotron, we will determine the best way to provide resuscitation to preterm infants at birth, which reduces bleeding within the vulnerable preterm brain.

Novel interferon treatment to mitigate serious viral infections NHMRC Ideas Grant – 4 years Co-investigators: A/Prof Meredith O’Keeffe, Prof Paul Hertzog, Prof Philip Bardin, Dr Belinda Thomas, Dr Daniel Garama and Dr Paul Leong Viral respiratory infections are a major global health issue leading to morbidity and even death in susceptible people.

An effective immune response in the lung is critical for viral clearance and recovery from infection. We propose to determine the potency and efficacy of a broad-spectrum, naturally occurring, antiviral protein for suitability as a therapeutic biologic agent for a range of viral respiratory infections.

Redefining signalling to integrate emerging STAT3 activities Associate Professor Kate Lawlor NHMRC Ideas Grant – 4 years Co-investigators: Dr Timothy Gottschalk and Dr Deepagan Veerasikku Gopal NETosis is a form of programmed cell death in neutrophils that induces the release of inflammatory molecules to cause tissue damage in autoimmune diseases, like vasculitis-associated kidney disease.

Recently, a range of membrane-damaging molecules have been shown to drive NETosis. This project seeks to answer which membrane-damaging molecules control NETosis and inflammation during vasculitis and whether we can target them therapeutically to prevent life-threatening kidney disease.

Mechanisms of mucosal damage and repair during bacterial gut infection Professor Elizabeth Hartland AM NHMRC Ideas Grant – 4 years Co-investigators: A/Prof Edward Giles, Dr Eva Chan and A/Prof Jaclyn Pearson Intestinal damage is a precursor to inflammation and diarrhoeal disease. How gut repair is influenced by the extent and type of inflammation is unknown.

We are developing models to understand how best to help the gut lining recover after damage by inflammation and/or infection. Our models are based on human intestinal cells that recapitulate the gut lining and that can be propagated in the lab. We aim to find new ways to help the gut heal quickly after damage occurs.

Identification and Selective targeting of proinflammatory effects of interferons NHMRC Ideas Grant – 5 years Co-investigators: Dr Nicole de Weerd and Dr Hariharan Sivaraman There are limited treatments for inflammatory diseases such as the lung damage in infection by SARS or Flu; autoimmune disease such as Systemic Lupus Erythematosus, inflammatory bowel disease, etc. These conditions can be caused by excess activity of molecules like interferons (IFNs) that are made to protect the body, but for some reason go out of control.

We will study how IFNs are controlled in disease and how to block the bad effects while leaving the beneficial effects of IFNs.

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