News & Events — Virology Research Laboratory

A further $8.3m in funding for the ENDIA Study

February 11, 2020 By virology

Congratulations to Professors Maria Craig, William Rawlinson, and colleagues from the national ENDIA Study Team, on $8.3m funding provided by JDRF Australia and The Leona M. and Harry B. Helmsley Charitable Trust. ENDIA is the first study worldwide to recruit from the pregnancy and follow babies into childhood to find the causes of type 1 diabetes. With the recruitment of 1500 participants completed at the end of last year, this funding will be used to continue the follow-up of this cohort for a further three years.

You can follow the Study’s progress and any new publications at: http://www.endia.org.au/researcher-resources/ or on their Facebook page: www.facebook.com/endiastudy

Virology Research Lab awarded prestigious UNSW Scientia PhD scholarship!

January 24, 2020 By virology

We are very pleased to announce our successful UNSW Scientia PhD scholarship in collaboration with Matthew Scotch from Arizona State University, USA. We look forward to our candidate starting in 2020.

CMV Group Receives UNSW Funding for 3D Brain Organoid and Placental Explant Studies of Congenital Infections

December 19, 2019 By virology

Congratulations to Dr Stuart Hamilton, Ece Egilmezer, and Prof William Rawlinson who received funding from the UNSW 3Rs Grant Scheme for their investigations on Animal Replacement with 3D Cerebral Organoid Models & Placental Explant Histocultures for Study of Congenital infections.

This pioneering study at the Virology Research Laboratory & UNSW is developing mini human brains (cerebral organoids) from pluripotent stem cells to investigate mother-to-child-transmission of CMV through the placenta, the pathogenic effects CMV infection has on placental and fetal brain development/function as well as the safety and efficacy profiles of experimental therapeutics for congenital infection.

Dr Stuart Hamilton receives award from Placenta journal and the International Federation of Placenta Associations

September 24, 2019 By virology

Congratulations to Dr Stuart Hamilton and co-authors Corina Hutterer, Ece Egilmezer, Mirjam Steingruber, Jens Milbradt, Manfred Marschall and William Rawlinson for being awarded "Best New Investigator Paper" by the Placenta Journal and the International Federation of Placenta Associations (IFPA) at the annual international meeting in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

This was awarded in recognition of an outstanding contribution to the quality of the journal for their recent publication "Human cytomegalovirus utilises dual-specificity tyrosine phosphorylation-regulated kinases during placental replication" Placenta. 72-73:10-19.

This work was undertaken as part of the continuing international research collaborations between our CMV research team and the CMV research team of Professor Manfred Marschall at the Institute for Clinical and Molecular Virology, University of Erlangen-Nürnberg, Germany.

Dr. Ki Wook Kim receives the Rising Star in Type 1 Diabetes Research Award

August 9, 2019 By virology

Our postdoctoral scientist Dr Ki Wook Kim has been awarded the prestigious Lindsey Baudinet Rising Star Award in Type 1 Diabetes Research by the Australian Diabetes Society.

This $20,000 award supports outstanding Australian early-career researchers undertaking clinical or preclinical research in type 1 diabetes and its complications.

Dr. Kim will use this towards characterizing the population of viruses that trigger islet autoimmunity and type 1 diabetes as part of the nation-wide ENDIA cohort study (www.endia.org.au).