Prof. Mike Calford, HMRI: The future of medical, health research in Newcastle is bright | Opinion

I would argue the importance of health and medical research to our community on any day; however, this year's celebrations take part during a global pandemic, which supplies a certain gravitas.

The COVID-19 pandemic put health and medical research onto the front page of every newspaper and to the front of our minds.

As we continue to recover, we should remember the enormous debt we all owe to our researchers. Researchers have developed multiple effective vaccines in record time and pioneered treatments and public health measures to protect us.

The speed and skill of this work have provided us with a path back to a measure of normality. Still, it is a path which we must all chose to take, so get the jab if you can.

On this issue: Hunter Medical Research Institute part of nationwide trial to test drugs for COVID-19

There is much to celebrate for HMRI during this year's medical research week. Of particular note is HMRI researcher, University of Newcastle Associate Professor Kelvin Kong, on receiving the ASMR Medal yesterday.

Professor Kong's research and clinical work has had real impacts on the lives of many Indigenous children. His research includes investigating the role of bacteria in ear infections and developing novel strategies to improve Indigenous children's access to specialist interventions.

These programs improve the health and hearing of children and, by doing so, can improve educational outcomes and tackle disadvantage. Professor Kong has had a stellar year, with this latest award coming after receiving the City of Newcastle's Citizen of the Year award. He is a deserving recipient, and we are very proud to have him at HMRI.

Founded in 1998, HMRI is a partnership between the University of Newcastle, Hunter New England Health, and the community.

Having a world-class health and medical research institute in the local community helps us all. Research and clinical trials in particular provide real benefits for patients, hospitals and the wider community.

Without local health and medical research, it would be more challenging for our hospitals to attract the best clinicians to work in the area, and patients would have difficulty accessing new treatments and clinical trials without having to travel to capital cities.

The research conducted in Newcastle is genuinely world-class, with HMRI affiliate researchers from the university and Hunter New England Health earning "well above world standard" status and achieving a 5 out of 5 in 10 categories in the Excellence in Research for Australia rankings.

In our strength areas of medical and health sciences, we equal or outperform Australia's top three research universities Sydney, Melbourne and the ANU.

The future for health and medical research in Newcastle is bright, with several exciting developments on the horizon.

We have recently embarked upon an ambitious project to study the early origins of disease. The New1000 study will recruit 1000 babies and their families and follow them for the first 1000 days of their life. New1000 has the potential to unlock secrets into how many health conditions develop early in life and attempt to intervene to stop them.

In more practical news, the recently announced redevelopment of the John Hunter Hospital and the formation of NSW's only regional health and innovation precinct is a crucial step towards expanding our research activities.

The new acute care building will directly connect HMRI and the hospital's new emergency department. HMRI plans to use this connection and capacity to introduce more advanced clinical trials of new treatments, something that has previously not been available locally. Having access to these trials will expand the regional research capabilities and give residents of the hunter access to potentially life-saving experimental treatments.

None of these initiatives would be possible without community support. HMRI's affiliated researchers have been very successful in securing large grants for research projects but what many people may not realise is how much preparation goes into developing proposals before they are ready to apply for these large grants.

Our researchers can only do the work needed to secure these big grants with your support.

Whether it is through donations that allow us to seed fund research or through the work of our many volunteers who support our day to day operations, it is our connection with the community that allows our researchers to try to change the world.

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