![\"\"](\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/Mark-Douglas.jpg\")
\nHepatitis B is treatable, but most people need to take medicine for life. \u00a0Some people can safely stop treatment after a few years, but it is difficult to predict for each person whether the virus will come back.<\/p>\n
Associate Professor Douglas and his team have developed a new test to measure different forms of virus in the liver. \u00a0This test should identify people who can safely stop treatment and those who need to continue. The team will use this grant to study how this test can be used to improve quality of life for people living with hepatitis B.<\/p>\n
Professor Andrew Harman<\/strong> Professor Harman and his team will use this grant to define the receptors these DCs use to bind HIV, and how they activate the immune system. This information is an important step toward the design of a HIV vaccine.<\/p>\n Using new technologies that WIMR\u2019s research program has pioneered, the team will also define how HIV transmission occurs in inflamed human tissue for the first time.\u00a0 The hope is that this will lead to better preventative treatments.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Professor Scott Byrne<\/strong> The NHMRC also recently announced the recipients of its Investigator Grants.\u00a0 The Investigator Grant scheme is NHMRC’s largest funding scheme, providing a 5-year fellowship and research support for outstanding researchers at all career stages.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Congratulations to WIMR\u2019s\u00a0Dr Kirstie Bertram<\/strong>\u00a0for being awarded an Investigator Grant for her research into HIV. New HIV infections are now clearly associated with an inflamed genital tract (in both males and females) and the microbiome of these sites. What is unclear is the composition of the immune cell in these inflamed tissues, and whether they are the main drivers of increased disease.<\/p>\n Dr Bertram and her team have developed techniques to isolate and interrogate immune cells from human genital tissue and how they interact with HIV. \u00a0This grant will help Dr Bertram to connect the immune cell environment with inflammation and the microbiome.<\/p>\n
\nDendritic cells (DC) are the first cells to\u00a0![\"\"](\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/Andrew-Harman.jpg\")
interact with HIV and our research has discovered three DCs that transmit the virus.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/Scott-Byrne-scaled.jpeg\")
\nSkin cancers are more common in Australia than all other cancers combined.\u00a0 To reduce their burden, Australians are advised to protect their skin when the sun is strong, but not when the sun is weak.
\nProfessor Byrne and his team will use this NHMRC Ideas Grant to test whether low-intensity sunlight is \u2018harmless\u2019 by exposing the skin of volunteers to non-burning doses of UV radiation, and then assessing the effects on their skin cells.\u00a0 The information from these experiments will inform sun protection policies.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/Kirstie-Bertram.jpeg\")
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