News & events

Pictured here is Dr Anthony Kicic, Respiratory Researcher at Telethon Kids & Prof Bob Hancock, Director of the Hancock Lab at @UBC.

Their research crosses the globe, using ‘Bob’s magic peptides’ to fight antibiotic-resistant superbugs in cystic fibrosis.

Check them out on Today Tonight!

Vision credit: Seven West Media and Today Tonight

Congratulations to AREST CF Students Kelly Martinovich and Renee Ng!

Kelly and Renee were both recipients of Best Poster Awards at the recent Institute of Respiratory Health 20 year anniversary Symposium in Perth. 

Kelly's poster was titled "Antisense oligonucleotide mediated splice modulation to improve CFTR function of intron 9 5T polymorphism". Kelly’s PhD research has been developing antisense drugs that have potential to restore function to the CFTR protein and has some exciting impact for people with rare variants of CF.

Renee's poster was titled "Exploring the therapeutic potential of phage therapy to treat Pseudomonas aeruginosa infection in people with cystic fibrosis". Renee’s PhD research looks into establishing a screening tool for high throughput bacteriophage assessment and develop a potential therapeutic pipeline to treat children with bacterial lung infections. 

In mid-November, Associate Professor Rabindra Tirouvanziam visited AREST CF from Emory University in Atlanta in the US state of Georgia. Funded by Telethon Kids Institute, this visit was part of an ongoing collaboration with Drs Luke Garratt, Anthony Kicic and Stephen Stick. Funded by the National Health and Medical Research Council, the collaboration is investigating how neutrophils respond to different early CF lung infections. Prior work by A/Prof Tirouvanziam found that neutrophils behave differently in the lungs of adults with CF, reducing their ability to beat infections. His recent work showed this behaviour can be corrected, offering a new type of treatment to help reduce lung damage in CF. The goal of AREST CF is to identify whether this neutrophil behaviour requires treatment early in disease, to help prevent chronic infections and lung damage. During his visit, the interim results from the collaborative study were reviewed and designs of future studies were confirmed. A/Prof Tirouvanziam also gave seminars at the Telethon Kids Institute and the Annual Rottnest Scientific Respiratory Meeting, hosted by the Respiratory Research Centre. Dr Garratt will be visiting Emory in May 2020 and we look to welcome A/Prof Tirouvanziam and his team again in the future.

It’s been a big month for the Institute’s Respiratory Research Centre!

Over 80 leading respiratory researchers and PhD students gathered in Rottnest Island for the Annual Rottnest Scientific Respiratory Meeting, hosted by the Institute’s Respiratory Research Centre.

The event, which has been going for the last 29 years, brings together researchers working in the area of paediatric respiratory health. This year, five prestigious international speakers joined the group, jetting in from Canada, the United States and the Netherlands.