Cancer Care Services, Royal Brisbane and Women’s Hospital

Andrea will focus on addressing unmet needs in Bone Marrow Transplantation (BMT). Her research aims to understand the immunological mechanisms leading to complications (e.g. disease relapse, graft-versus-host disease (GVHD), infection) that arise from BMT, and to offer new treatments for Metro North patients with unmet medical need. She intends to achieve this through a program of strategically targeted translational clinical research carried out at the Royal Brisbane and Women’s Hospital (RBWH) and QIMR Berghofer Medical Research Institute (QIMRB). This program will include phase I/II clinical trials of novel immunomodulatory treatments for relapse and GVHD and examination of infective complications of immunosuppression including novel pandemic viruses and vaccine efficacy.

Cardiology, Royal Brisbane and Women’s Hospital

Sandhir’s work will seek to increase the research capacity, participation and output of the quaternary echocardiography laboratory at the Royal Brisbane and Women’s Hospital (RBWH), in order to establish an international reputation for high quality echocardiography research. This will be achieved through initiating original investigator-initiated research projects within the echocardiography laboratory through high level internal and external collaborations. The primary goal is to exploit the large reservoir of high-quality echocardiography data stored on the current institutional database to create a number of disease specific databases incorporating clinical, echocardiographic and outcomes data, which can provide novel insights into disease pathophysiology, redefine thresholds for normalcy, enable quality improvement and redefine risk stratification. The primary project for this Fellowship will examine echocardiography and outcomes following myocardial infarction.

Intensive Care, Caboolture Hospital and The Prince Charles Hospital

Mahesh is looking to transform the way clinical trials are conducted in Queensland ICUs by enhancing RCT (randomised controlled trials) capacity in regional centres in partnership with larger centres and developing a new platform of registry-based trials that will serve to answer clinically important questions in a cost-effective, practical, and value-based manner.

Nutrition and Dietetics, Royal Brisbane and Women’s Hospital

Teresa will look to optimise nutrition outcomes and care pathways for patients undergoing surgical resection for head and neck cancer (HNC). As a clinician-researcher with 20 years clinical experience, she is strategically positioned to lead implementation and improvements to nutrition service delivery, clinical care and patient outcomes. The Fellowship will provide the platform to leverage her clinical-research expertise and skills in collaboration with the multidisciplinary team at one of the largest head and neck cancer centres in Australia to develop evidence-based nutrition management guidelines for the peri-operative management of patients with head and neck cancer undergoing surgical resection.

Internal Medicine and Aged Care, Royal Brisbane and Women’s Hospital

Jonathon’s Fellowship will focus on reducing cardiovascular and neurological injury with personalised perioperative care to ensure patients return home safely following surgery. He is aiming for a sustainable program of specialist practice and innovative research that will advance perioperative medicine to ensure patients return home safely following surgery. He anticipates that the health impact from his fellowship research program will improve the patient experience, advance clinical practice, and contribute to optimising institutional operations.