News & events

Professor Carola Vinuesa was among the five Australian National University academics to be recognised by the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) with Research Fellowships and Early Career Fellowships.

Professor Vinuesa received a Research Fellowship for her work in disease research and will receive $763,845 from the NHMRC.

Professor Vinuesa said the fellowship gives her enormous financial and psychological stability which allows her to plan ahead, take some risks and reduce the burden of non-research responsibilities.

"I will do my very best to return the dollars invested in me, so that patients suffering from immune diseases can benefit from my team's discoveries and young students and researchers grow under our mentorship and training," she said.

Vice-Chancellor Professor Brian Schmidt congratulated the winners and said their research would make a real difference to the lives of people around the world.

The 2016 School of Personalised Immunology was held on the 23-24 July at the Translational Research Facility, Monash Health Translation Precinct in Clayton, Melbourne. Students, clinicians and medical students from hospitals and research institutes in Melbourne attended the School, co-convened by Professor David Fulcher and Dr Julia Ellyard.

The one and a half-day course covered genomics, from basic genomics to advance bioinformatics and the latest techniques used in exome and genome sequencing. It included a half-day workshop where attendees were given the opportunity to put theoretical knowledge into practice. There was also discussion on the ethical implications and issues involved in the integration of genome sequencing in medicine.

The program, organised and run by the CPI, emphasised the various disciplines involved and the challenges facing the future of genomic medicine.

A copy of the preliminary program can be found here.

We are pleased to announce that one of our Chief Investigators, Professor David Fulcher, along with our Co-directors, Professors Carola Vinuesa and Matthew Cook will be presenting a public lecture on Genetics and Immune Diseases at the Translational Research Facility, Monash Health Translation Precinct in July (details below).

The immune system is what protects our bodies from disease and infection. However, in some people this system breaks down and can cause what are collectively known as immune-related diseases. These include autoimmune diseases (eg. lupus) where the immune systems attacks healthy tissue and immune deficiencies (eg. primary immunedeficiency) where part of the immune system is completely absent. Recent advances in gene technology has improved our understanding of the major role a person's genome plays in immune diseases.

In this lecture, Professors Fulcher, Vinuesa and Cook will provide a general overview of how the immune system works, discuss the important role of genetics and the implications for human health.