ABI researchers receive more than $2.5m in latest HRC funding

Associate Professor Jichao Zhao will receive $1.2m over 3 years for his project 'Targeting atrial subcellular tubules in atrial fibrillation: A new perspective'.

Professor Leo Cheng will also be given $1.2m over 3 years for his project 'Targeted pacing for gastric dysfunction therapy'.

Dr Tharanga Jayathungage Don was awarded e a 2025 Explorer Grant of $150,000 over two years for his 'Acoustic wellness monitor' project.

“This is an outstanding result considering that only 32 projects were awarded across the country,” says Professor Merryn Tawhai, Auckland Bioengineering Institute Director. “These projects build on years of computational modelling, imaging, and instrumentation development to tackle major health issues of importance to New Zealand.”

These projects are among many Waipapa Taumata Rau, University of Auckland health research initiatives to receive grants from the Government’s principal health research funder.

Three major programmes receive $5m each to undertake groundbreaking research. The Deputy Vice-Chancellor, Research and Innovation, Professor Frank Bloomfield leads the 'Optimising nutrition for preterm babies' programme at the University’s Liggins Institute. In the case of very pre-term babies, their only nutrition comes through feeding tubes to their veins.

The programme will design new nutrition formulations to improve outcomes. A key part of the programme aims to see if later learning and behavioural outcomes are altered by providing the smell and taste of milk in tube feeds. The goal is to save lives, reduce disability and enable pre-term babies to live healthier lives.

Associate Professor George Laking of Te Aka Mātauranga Matepukupuku, the Centre for Cancer Research, will work with collaborators and whānau to develop and test a new model of Breast Cancer care, in Auckland and the Waikato, 'Whiria te Aka Matua: A new and comprehensive model of breast cancer care for Māori women.'

Nearly half of all women with breast cancer are diagnosed outside the national screening programme, through discovery of symptomatic breast cancer. The model aims to redress a major health inequity. Māori women with symptomatic breast cancer have a 37 percent greater risk of death than non-Māori women. The new model of care wants to fix gaps in accessing timely and holistic health care with a whānau-based approach.

Professor Ian Hermans of the Malaghan Institute of Medical Research will work with researchers at the Faculty of Medical and Health Sciences, including paediatrician Dr Kuang Hsiao, on the project 'Protecting vulnerable populations against measles outbreak with a new mRNA vaccine'.

The goal is to use the same mRNA technology that produced the Covid-19 vaccines to develop a new measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine for vulnerable groups, including those with an impaired immune system, pregnant women and very young infants. These groups can’t receive the current MMR vaccine.

Māori and Pacific peoples are over-represented in these groups, and a successful mRNA vaccine would be a valuable alternative to protect these communities in a measles outbreak. In the worst cases, measles is highly infectious and can result in death or permanent brain damage.

2025 Health Research Council funding

2025 Explorer Grant recipients

• Dr Tharanga Jayathungage Don, Auckland Bioengineering Institute, 'Acoustic wellness monitor', 24 months, $150,000
• Associate Professor Paul Harris, Science, 'Enabling BNCT radiotherapy in Aotearoa New Zealand to better treat cancer,' 24 months, $150,000
• Dr Danielle Lottridge, Science, 'Therapeutic dance at scale: Immersive full-body generative AI for mental health', 24 months, $150,000

2025 Emerging Researcher First Grants

• Dr Amy McCaughey-Chapman, Pharmacology, FMHS, 'Development of a human oligodendrocyte platform for multiple sclerosis', 36 months, $400,000
• Dr Amy Lovell, Nutrition, FMHS, 'Experience-based co-design of a prehabilitation pathway for children with cancer', 36 months, $398,462
• Dr Cervantée Wild, Paediatrics, FMHS, 'The Waiting Game: Children on waitlists for specialist health services', 36 months, $400,000
• Dr Lucy Goodman, Optometry and Vision Science, FMHS, 'Improving eye health among the most underserved populations in Aotearoa', 36 months, $399,783

2025 Programmes

• Professor Frank Bloomfield, Liggins, DVC, 'Optimising nutrition for pre-term babies', 60 months, $4,999,550
• Associate Professor George Laking, Centre for Cancer Research, FMHS 'Whiria te Aka Matua, A new and comprehensive model of breast cancer care for Māori women', 60 months, $4,999,980
• Professor Ian Hermans, Malaghan Institute of Medical Research with University of Auckland collaborators, FMHS, 'Protecting vulnerable populations against measles outbreaks with a new mRNA vaccine', 60 months, $4,996,602

2025 Projects

• Professor Bronwen Connor, Pharmacology, FMHS, Three-dimensional cell replacement therapy to treat Huntington's disease , 48 months, $1,200,000
• Associate Professor Kim Mellor, Physiology, FMHS, Heart disease in diabetes: focus on fructose as a novel therapeutic intervention, 36 months, $1,199,482
• Dr Emma Scotter, Biological Sciences, Science, Genotypes, phenotypes, and treatment of NOTCH2NLC-related disease in Aotearoa New Zealand, 36 months, $1,199,541
• Dr Joanna Hikaka, Centre for Co-Created Ageing, FMHS, Developing new community-led models of aged care, 36 months, $1,199,996
• Professor Leo Cheng, Auckland Bioengineering Institute, Targeted pacing for gastric dysfunction therapy, 36 months, $1,200,000
• Dr Justin Rustenhoven, Pharmacology, FMHS, Targeting meningeal fibrosis to improve outcomes in traumatic brain injuries,36 months, $1,199,744
• Dr Raewyn Poulsen, Pharmacology, FMHS, How the mechanisms driving osteoarthritis differ in males versus females, 36 months, $1,199,983
• Associate Professor Jichao Zhao, Auckland Bioengineering Institute, Targeting atrial subcellular tubules in atrial fibrillation: A new perspective, 36 months, $1,200,000
• Professor Alan Davidson, molecular medicine, pathology, FMHS
  'Role of a CALCRL gene variant in metabolic disease', 36 months, $1,199,957
• Professor Natalie Walker, Population Health, FMHS, 'Nicotine pouches for smoking cessation', 36 months, $1,437,789
• Dr Angus Grey, Physiology, FMHS, 'Translational studies of solute carriers in human diabetic lens cataract', 36 months, $1,199,904
• Dr Victor Dieriks, Anatomy, FMHS, 'Harnessing tears for diagnosing Pacific PINK1 and idiopathic Parkinson’s disease', 36 months, $1,199,998
• Dr Fuafiva Fa'alau, Pacific health, FMHS, 'Validation of the (PACA) Pasifika Assessment of Cognition Abilities Tool', 36 months, $1,200,000
• Dr 'Etuini Ma'u, FMHS, 'Who are we missing? Access to community services for Pacific elders' , 36 months, $1,198,91

AI in Healthcare Request for Proposals

• Associate Professor Vanessa Selak, FMHS, 'Aotearoa roadmap for AI scribes', 18 months, $399,886
• Associate Professor Katrina Poppe, FMHS, 'Using AI to support the medical management of people with heart failure', 12 months, $94,086
• Professor Colin Simpson, FMHS, (from October), 'Leveraging explainable AI to identify novel risk factors in dementia', 18 months, $400,000
• Professor Gregory O'Grady, FMHS, 'Towards a digital paradigm of postoperative monitoring', 24 months, $699,996