The University of Queensland (UQ) has received more than $360,000 in Government funding to further strengthen research linkages with China.
The largest grant, worth $167,500, went to Professor Chen Chen from the School of Biomedical Sciences, who will investigate whether the growth hormone gherlin may be an effective treatment for diabetes-related heart disease.
According to Professor Chen, diabetics have a very high incidence of developing cardiovascular disease and heart failure. Currently, there is no specific therapeutic strategy for treatment of diabetes-related heart disease.
In previous studies, patients with type 1 and type 2 diabetes have been found to have lower levels of ghrelin; a hormone found in the lining of the human stomach and pancreas that stimulates hunger, said Professor Chen.
"The most important and significant contribution of this project is that it will provide experimental evidence for the therapeutic use of gherlin and synthetic small molecular analogues for prevention and treatment of diabetes-related heart diseases, thereby reducing suffering and death caused by diabetes."
Professor Chen will work in collaboration with Professor Wei-jin Zang at Xi'an Jiaotong University.
Some other UQ projects that received funding were:
- Dr Jacqueline Batley ($49,000) to identify genes responsible for increasing yield in canola. Dr Batley will collaborate with Professor Jinling Meng, of the Huazhong Agricultural University.
- Associate Professor David Edwards ($96,500) for a project titled Sequencing the Brassica C genome. This research will provide a foundation resource for vegetable crop improvement and contribute to a public whole genome resource for canola. Dr Edwards' partner institution is the Institute of Vegetables and Flowers, Chinese Academy of Sciences.
The grants are provided from the Australia-China Special Fund for Scientific and Technological Cooperation, which is part of the International Science Linkages program.
Participating Australian and Chinese research institutions, Australian industry and the Chinese Government will also contribute funds to the projects.
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