USQ scientists awarded grants for vital health research in Queensland and India

USQ scientists expect to improve the treatment of heart disease, diabetes and obesity in both Queensland and India after being awarded more than $535,000 in funding this month (October).

USQ academics Professor Lindsay Brown, Professor Raj Gururajan, Dr Abdul Hafeez-Baig and Dr Heng-Sheng Tsai will partner with Professor MK Unnikrishnan from Manipal University in India and industry partners in both Queensland and India to assess potential new treatments.

The grant has been provided under a joint initiative of the Queensland and Indian Governments, the Indo-Queensland Biotechnology Fund, with $160,000 from the Department of Employment, Economic Development and Innovation (Queensland) and the Department of Biotechnology (India), as well as a further $50,000 from USQ.

The industry partners will further provide more than $200,000 in financial assistance for this three-year project.

This collaboration will offer a multi-pronged attack on obesity by studies in two areas of medical biotechnology: drug design/development and information technology.

'My research group will use novel compounds developed by Professor Unnikrishnan to activate energy use by cells in the body,' Professor Brown said.

'We will also work with Professor Gururajan and his colleagues to apply cutting-edge information technology to measure changes continuously in diet-induced obese rats.

'Professor Gururajan’s aim is then to further develop this technology with the help of industry partners to provide better collection of relevant information in overweight and diabetic patients for medical practitioners.'

Professor Gururajan said the research was in line with their prior work in developing solutions for health services and addressing emerging health issues.

Dr Hafeez-Baig and fellow USQ researcher Dr Sharad Rajendaran were also awarded two State Government Early Career Fellowships of $32,500 and $38,000 respectively to further their work in Indian institutions.

Dr Hafeez-Baig will spend 12 weeks early next year at the PSG Super Speciality Hospital in Coimbatore to fine-tune a method to monitor cardiac patients remotely.

Dr Rajendran will spend 16 weeks at Manipal University to synthesise and purify new compounds to be tested at USQ with Vijay Mor, a PhD student jointly supervised by Professor Unnikrishnan and Professor Brown.

This is the first time USQ has been awarded these fellowships.

USQ Vice-Chancellor and President, Professor Bill Lovegrove, congratulated the scientists on this very significant achievement.

'This funding adds a strong research dimension to the University’s developing links with India and is a great example of USQ’s developing capacity in multidisciplinary research,' Professor Lovegrove said.