UNSW-led projects to mend damaged heart cells and address the gap in Indigenous healthcare have been included in a prestigious list of Australia’s top 10 medical research projects of 2015.

The National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) is Australia's peak funding body for health-related research, and has released its annual list highlighting the 10 most impactful research projects from last year.

“These are projects that have achieved results of particular significance for the improvement of human health – whether through advancement of knowledge or the prevention, detection or treatment of disease,” says Professor Anne Kelso, CEO of the NHMRC.

The Acting Dean of UNSW Medicine, Professor Terry Campbell, says the inclusion of these projects demonstrates the impact of UNSW’s high-quality medical research.

”The Mission of UNSW Medicine is to conduct world-class health and medical research with high impact and translation. This outstanding accolade from Australia’s leading funding body is testament to the exceptional talent and commitment from our researchers to help realise this goal."

Indigenous Health: Understanding the health gap

Professor Louisa Jorm, Director of the Centre for Big Data Research in Health at UNSW, was the leader of a five-year, $485,000 project investigating the disparity in health outcomes between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians.

Despite efforts to bridge the health gap, Indigenous Australians have a life expectancy 11.5 years lower for males and 9.7 years lower for females than non-Indigenous Australians.

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Professor Louisa Jorm has made significant breakthroughs in understanding the Indigenous healthcare gap

Professor Jorm and her team, which included researchers from the University of Western Sydney, scrutinised data held by modern healthcare systems to understand the factors influencing this persistent disadvantage. 

“Our research found that crucial issues driving poor outcomes for Aboriginal people included high rates of comorbidities, low levels of private health insurance, use of smaller hospitals with fewer specialist services, and limited access to publically funded services,” Professor Jorm said.

The project found that Aboriginal people were 2.1 times more likely to be hospitalised for heart attacks than non-Indigenous people; they were 30% less likely to have cataract surgery despite higher rates of the condition; Aboriginal children were 30% less likely to get treatment for serious ear infections, which can lead to hearing loss; and Aboriginal peoples were 1.2 times more likely to have a serious traffic injury.

The research has already helped plan improved cardiac, ear and eye health services for Aboriginal peoples in New South Wales, and has informed a number of state and federal policy documents. The team is now investigating ways to promote successful early childhood development in Aboriginal children.   

Mending a broken heart: repairing injured heart cells

Professor Robert Graham from UNSW Medicine and the Victor Chang Cardiac Research Institute led a two-year, $536,000 project investigating ways to repair damaged heart cells.

For more than a century, conventional wisdom assumed that the heart was unable to produce new muscle cells shortly after birth, limiting the organ’s ability to heal itself after an injury.

But in an exciting discovery, Professor Graham and colleagues in the US overturned this belief. 

“Surprisingly, we showed that heart muscle cells retain the ability to make new cells until early adolescence,” he says. “This opens a window of opportunity to more effectively treat some forms of congenital heart disease in which the heart muscle hasn’t developed properly.”

In Australia, more than 2000 babies are born with a congenital heart condition each year. Professor Graham’s discovery is providing hope for these babies and their families and could prove to be a life-saver for the children affected. 

“By allowing proper healing of the injured or mal-developed heart, we may be able to markedly improve outcomes after heart attacks and prevent the need for major and repeated surgery in children with congenital heart disease,” Professor Graham remarked.

The team is now trying to understand the molecular mechanism that stimulates cell division after birth, so they can better control and apply the technique as a treatment.