Theme Collaborative Seed Grant Recipients
Our Theme Collaborative Seed Grant Schemes provide Early and Mid-Career Researchers (EMCRs) at UNSW opportunities to lead innovative projects. Funded by UNSW Medicine & Health, our grants foster cross-disciplinary collaborations to produce high-quality research and clinical outcomes. Successful projects enhance competitiveness for external grant funding and serve as a pathway to more ambitious projects.
2025 Theme Collaborative Seed Grant Recipients
Recipients | Theme | Affiliation | Grant Title |
Dr Zien Zhou Dr Menglu Ouyang | Cardiovascular & Metabolic Medicine | The George Institute for Global Health | The willingness to accept brain imaging evaluation for the optimisation of anticoagulation management among people with atrial fibrillation and low-to-intermediate stroke risk. |
Dr Aaminah Khan Dr Vikram Tallapragada | Cardiovascular & Metabolic Medicine | Childrens Cancer Institute & Victor Chang Cardiac Research Institute | Balancing Efficacy and Safety: Modulating Polyamine Inhibition to Reduce Cardiotoxicity in Paediatric Oncology. |
A/Prof Clare Arnott Dr Nila Dharan | Cardiovascular & Metabolic Medicine | The George Institute for Global Health & Kirby Institute | OPTIMAR-Heart Study: Assessing the impact of SGLT2 inhibitors on epicardial adipose tissue in HIV positive patients on integrase-based anti-retroviral therapies. |
A/Prof Izzy Jayasinghe Dr Vaishnavi Ananthanarayanan | Cardiovascular & Metabolic Medicine | School of Biomedical Sciences | Unmasking and targeting the structural and molecular drivers of heterogeneity in the failing heart. |
Dr Katrina Kissock Dr Kathy Trieu | Cardiovascular & Metabolic Medicine | The George Institute for Global Health | Integrating potassium-enriched salt into usual healthcare practice for hypertension management in Australia. |
Ms Martina Beretta Dr Brenna Osborne | Cardiovascular & Metabolic Medicine | BABS | Investigating the efficacy of mitochondrial uncoupler BAM15 in promoting neuronal resistance to metabolic and oxidative stress in ischemic conditions. |
Dr Yunjia (Carmen) Zhang Dr Jingjing Li
| Cardiovascular & Metabolic Medicine | School of Biomedical Sciences & School of Biomedical Engineering | A novel strategy for preventing heart failure in myocardial infarction survivors. |
| Dr Marianne Martinello | Triple I | Kirby Institute/POWH | People with injecting related infections: Assessing Treatment outcomes for those who are Hospitalised (PATH). |
| Dr Parvathy Rajan | Triple I | SoCM (Liverpool) | Alcoholic chronic pancreatitis – the role of ER stress and autophagy in driving PSC-macrophage interactions. |
| Dr Md Saiful Islam | Triple I | School of Population Health | Wastewater-based surveillance for rapid detection and informed response to Monkeypox virus in New South Wales, Australia |
| Dr Stefan Michalsk | Health Systems Reseasrch | National Centre of Excellence in Intellectual Disability Health (NCEIDH). | Evaluating the Effectiveness of Virtual Reality for Preparing People with Intellectual Disability for Healthcare Systems |
| Dr David Goodman | Health Systems Reseasrch | Kirby Institute | Feasibility of a pilot one-stop test and treat intervention to increase hepatitis C treatment uptake within the Australian National HCV Point of Care Testing Program. |
| Dr Sarah Ellis | Health Systems Reseasrch | SoCM Dspln Paed & Child Health | Delivering Equitable Psychosocial Care in Paediatric Oncology: Co-designing Consumer. & Clinician Resources to Identify and Respond to PROMs for Implementation. |
Dr Vikneswary (Vicky) Batumalai | Health Systems Reseasrch | The George Institute for Global Health | Identifying factors driving disparities in lung cancer care and outcomes among CALD populations to inform recommendations for improving access to lung cancer screening. |
| Dr Gemma Sicouri | Neuroscience, Mental Health & Addiction | Black Dog Institute | Codesigning and integrating a digital parent-led intervention for child anxiety in hospitals: An exploratory study. |
| Dr Peter Brown | Neuroscience, Mental Health & Addiction | School of Biomedical Engineering | Unifying digital health self-management tools for adults living with severe mental illness: A novel approach to enable lifestyle behaviour change. |
| Dr Jun Cao | Neuroscience, Mental Health & Addiction | NeuRA | Tissue conductivity imaging as an efficient substitute for FDG-PET. |
| Dr Felix Aplin | Neuroscience, Mental Health & Addiction | School of Biomedical Sciences | Measuring chemosensitivity to predict pathophysiology in respiratory disorders. |
| Amy Logan | Cancer | Childrens Cancer Institute | Tumour-targeted siRNA conjugates for therapeutic gene silencing in brain cancer. |
| Marjan Naeini | Cancer | Garvan Institute | Investigating Genomic and Epigenomic Drivers of Chemotherapy Resistance in Oesophageal Adenocarcinoma: A Pilot Study Using Nanopore Sequencing. |
| Venessa Chin | Cancer | Garvan Institute | Unravelling Genomic Diversity in ALK-Positive Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer: Insights from Paired RNA/DNA Sequencing of Circulating Tumour Cells. |
Shannon Chiang
| Cancer | School of Biomedical Sciences | Pre-clinical development of a novel RNA-based therapy for pancreatic cancer. |
S M Zahid Hosen
| Cancer | Ingham Institute | Mapping Metabolic Dysregulation in Pancreatic Stellate: Implications for Tumour Growth and Immune Evasion in Pancreatic Cancer |
Neuroscience, Mental Health & Addiction
Research Development Manager neuro.mentalhealth.addiction@unsw.edu.au