May 2025
Did you know that the first ever randomised clinical trial was conducted by Dr James Lind in 1747, to investigate treatments for scurvy among sailors?
In the 178 years since, clinical trials have become a critical part of evidence-based healthcare. Researchers at the Women’s and Children’s Hospital conduct clinical trials in areas such as type 1 diabetes, treatments for childhood cancer, Aboriginal health, new vaccines, new immunotherapies including for peanut allergies (see below), new treatments for respiratory conditions and infections, pregnancy health, emergency paediatric intubation (see below), genetics, treatments for preterm infants, treatments for children with Crohn’s disease and cancer, childhood dementia, robotics-based rehab, and allergy and immunology (and more!)
With generous support from the Women’s & Children’s Hospital Foundation, the Women’s and Children’s Research Centre will be holding an afternoon tea to celebrate International Clinical Trials Day on Tuesday, 20 May (the anniversary of Lind’s original trial), for all staff working in and supporting clinical trials across the Network. Details are in the “Research Events” section of this newsletter.
In other news, the 2025 WCHN Spark Research Seed Funding Program will open on Monday, 5 May 2025. This year, there will be two streams: one for early and mid-career researchers and HDR students, and another available to medical, nursing, midwifery and allied health clinical staff at all career stages who do not hold a PhD or are not enrolled in a higher degree by research program. As in 2024, these grants are proudly supported by The Hospital Research Foundation Group. See “Grant and Funding Opportunities” below.
I hope you enjoy this edition of the Women’s and Children’s Research News.
Expression of interest for research positions at WCHN
The Women’s and Children’s Research Centre is curating an opt-in database of nurses, midwives, allied health staff and scientists who express interest in research positions at WCHN.
Staff in the database may be contacted when relevant research training and employment opportunities within the Network become available.
If you would like your name included in the database, please fill in the form here.
For further information, contact Senior Clinical Research Nurse Louise Goodchild Louise.Goodchild@sa.gov.au.
Mini–Sludge Audit Research Secretariat closure
The Research Secretariat will be closed for 3-hours on Monday, 5 May between 1.00pm and 4.00pm to enable the team to undertake a mini–Sludge Audit.
The Research Secretariat provides a range of services to researchers in addition to conducting ethics and governance reviews and approvals for research and research audits. Within the framework of SA Health and WCHN requirements, the team will be looking to identify excessive/unjustified frictions in the system that adversely impact researcher/s and staff of the Research Secretariat.
To contact the Research Secretariat, email: HealthWCHNResearch@sa.gov.au.
National Clinical Trials Governance Framework (NCTGF)
A reminder to all research staff that WCHN must comply with the requirements of the National Clinical Trials Governance Framework. This framework includes relevant actions from the existing National Safety Quality Health Service Standards (NCTGF) from both the Clinical Governance and Partnering with Consumers Standards and outlines how these actions must be applied in a research context. WCHN will be accredited against the requirements of the NCTGF via the short notice assessment pathway – meaning that we will receive 24-hours’ notice of accreditation.
To ensure you are accreditation-ready, please familiarise yourself with the Safety and Quality in Research at WCHN page on the intranet.
Professional development and support opportunities offered by the Academic Nurse Researcher.
- Drop into the library meeting room every Monday from 1.00pm - 2.00pm to discuss your research proposal or project.
- Enrol in an ‘Introduction to Qualitative Research in Healthcare’ course. This is open to all WCHN affiliated staff.
- Attend the monthly Qualitative Research Interest Group. Open to all.
- Book a 1:1 meeting to discuss project ideas, Higher Degree by Research interests or anything research. Please note these sessions are specifically targeted at nurses, midwives, and allied health professionals.
Email emma.jeffs@sa.gov.au for further information. Working days Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday 10.00am - 4.30pm.
2025 WCHN Spark Research Seed Funding Program
Expressions of interest will open Monday, 5 May for the 2025 WCHN Spark Research Seed Funding Program. Supported by The Hospital Research Foundation Group, the program aims to support early and mid-career researchers employed by or holding a position at the WCHN, higher degree by research (HDR) students supervised by researchers at the WCHN, and medical, nursing, midwifery and allied health clinicians based at WCHN sites, to undertake innovative research projects.
In 2025 there will be two streams:
Stream 1 ‘Established researcher’ seed funding stream for early and mid-career researchers and HDR students.
Stream 2 (NEW in 2025): ‘Clinician researcher’ funding stream available to medical, nursing, midwifery and allied health clinical staff at all career stages who do not hold a PhD or are not enrolled in a higher degree by research program.
Funding amounts requested can range from $20,000-$50,000 in Stream 1, and $10,000-$20,000 in Stream 2.
Please visit the WCHN Research Funding Opportunities webpage for more information and application forms.
WCHN Clinical Trials Day celebration
Generously supported by the Women’s & Children’s Hospital Foundation, the Women’s and Children’s Research Centre will be holding a celebratory afternoon tea for International Clinical Trials Day on Tuesday, 20 May.
International Clinical Trials Day is celebrated globally on 20 May each year to recognise the importance of clinical trials in advancing medical science.
All those working in and supporting clinical trials at WCHN are invited to attend.
If you would like to provide a photo of your trial team for a slideshow on the day, please send it to health.wchnresearchevents@sa.gov.au.
When: Tuesday, 20 May 2025
Time: 2.00pm - 3.00pm
Where: Tirkanthi Kuu / Queen Victoria Lecture Theatre and foyer
RSVP: Friday, 9 May 2025
Register to attend here: https://events.humanitix.com/wchn-clinical-trials-day-celebration.
Research Training Seminars
The Women’s and Children’s Research Centre is again running Research Training Seminars in 2025. This year they will be held in the Queen Victoria Lecture Theatre from 12.30pm - 1.30pm and can be streamed via MS Teams. A light lunch will be provided. No RSVP is required.
Thursday, 29 May – The diversity of research opportunities across SA Pathology
(Prof Joy Rathjen, Director, Research and Innovation, SA Pathology)
Thursday, 5 June – Why do a PhD and how? and Life after a PhD (Dr Agnes Arthur, Associate Dean of Graduate Studies, and Dr Thomas Kontou, Research Development Officer, University of Adelaide)
Thursday, 10 July – Pharmacy support for researchers at WCHN (Sharelle Campbell, Senior Pharmacist; Sean Turner, Director Pharmacy; Alka Garg, Deputy Director Pharmacy)
For the full program, MS Teams links and previous workshop recordings, visit WCHN Research Events.
NHMRC Investigator Grant
Congratulations to Professor Jodie Dodd, Clinical Director of the Women's and Babies Division, for her recent success in winning a prestigious NHMRC Investigator Grant worth $2.48 million for her project titled “Improving women’s health before conception: an evidence based strategy to break the intergenerational obesity cycle.
2024 NHMRC Elizabeth Blackburn Investigator Award
Congratulations to Professor Helen Marshall AM, Medical Director of the Vaccinology and Immunology Research Trials Unit (VIRTU), who has been awarded the 2024 NHMRC Elizabeth Blackburn Investigator Award (Leadership in Public Health Research) for the highest ranked applicant for an Investigator Grant (Leadership) in the public health pillar for 2024.
NHMRC CEO Professor Steve Wesselingh with Professor Marshall
The Elizabeth Blackburn Investigator Awards honour the Australian Nobel Laureate, a molecular biologist who received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 2009 jointly with Professor Jack Szostak and Professor Carol Greider.
The awards were established to promote and foster the career development of female researchers and are awarded annually to the highest ranked female recipient (Leadership category) in each of the Basic Science, Clinical Medicine and Science, Public Health and Health Services research areas of the Investigator Grants scheme.
Professor Marshall’s grant will support her ongoing research to determine the most effective immunisation program to prevent both meningococcal B disease and gonorrhoea with one vaccine.
No benefit to starting oral immunotherapies for peanut allergies early in childhood
Professor Mike Gold and Dr Patrick Quinn from the Department of Allergy and Immunology collaborated on a study led by Murdoch Children’s Research Institute in Melbourne and published in Allergy journal that found that higher peanut-specific IgE (sIgE) levels correlate with reduced likelihood of allergy remission following oral immunotherapies, while age did not predict remission outcome. This counters enthusiasm for early immunotherapies based on the theoretical concepts of greater immunological plasticity in early life.
Read about the research here.
High-flow oxygen does not help children’s emergency intubation
The Paediatric Intensive Care Unit (PICU) at the Women’s and Children’s Hospital was one of 11 intensive care units (ICUs) in Australia, New Zealand and Switzerland that participated in a randomised, controlled, open-label trial to determine the effectiveness of nasal high-flow (NHF) oxygen during apnoea on hypoxaemia and intubation success in paediatric emergency and ICU settings. Published in The Lancet, the Kids THRIVE study found that the use of NHF during emergency intubation in children did not reduce hypoxaemic events or improve first-attempt intubation success.
Read about the research here.
This month's featured researcher is Meredith Smith, a WCH physiotherapist who won a 2024 WCHN SPARK Research Seed Funding grant for her project looking at innovative approaches to assessing the impact of pain in youth with cerebral palsy.
What are you currently researching?
I have just submitted a PhD focusing on adapting chronic pain assessment tools for children and young people with cerebral palsy, including those with diverse cognitive and communication abilities. I am now leading two projects, the first a multi-site study investigating the impact of chronic pain on children and young people with cerebral palsy (using the tools we adapted in my PhD), and a second exploring how we can best adapt and deliver non-pharmacological chronic pain interventions for children with cerebral palsy.
What attracted you to this area of research?
I have worked clinically with children with cerebral palsy for over a decade and have observed that we, as clinicians, don’t assess or manage chronic pain particularly well for this group of children. This is partly because it is complex; cerebral palsy is a diverse population encompassing the entire spectrum of movement, cognition and communication abilities. Despite its complexity, chronic pain management has been identified as a priority research area by people with cerebral palsy. I wanted to research an area where we could work closely with children with cerebral palsy and their families to understand what they need and develop this together.
How are you researching this?
A lived experience advisory group has been involved throughout my PhD, and this group is now continuing with the current projects. We adapted the chronic pain assessment tools through a co-design process, which we modified to allow participation from children and young people with diverse cognitive and communication abilities. One of my current projects is a multi-site study across WCH, Perth Children’s Hospital and St Vincent’s Hospital Melbourne, using the adapted pain assessment tools in clinical practice to help us understand the impact of pain on children and young people with cerebral palsy.
What real life impact are you hoping the research will have?
I am hoping that the assessment tools we have adapted will be used in clinical practice to help clinicians better understand the impact of chronic pain on children with cerebral palsy. And more than that, that it will prompt clinicians and families to work together to better manage ongoing pain for these children and young people.
In one sentence, what is your ultimate dream for your research?
To reduce the impact of chronic pain on children and young people with cerebral palsy.
How does the WCHN support your research?
The Paediatric Rehabilitation Department at the WCH have been very supportive of these projects, including supporting participant recruitment. A/Prof Ray Russo (Head of Paediatric Rehabilitation) was also one of my PhD supervisors. The multi-site study I am currently running is funded by a Women’s and Children’s Early Career Spark Grant. This funding has enabled me to partner with health organisations in Perth and Melbourne alongside our sites here in Adelaide to make a bigger impact.
This month we spoke with Dr Jane Fitzgerald, who commenced in 2024 in the position of Research Psychologist to support organisational focus on research across CAMHS.
As a previous CAMHS clinician with a strong interest in enhancing the mental health of children as well as addressing episodes of mental illness, I am excited by this opportunity to develop organisationally based processes and practices, including a strategic plan, that will support CAMHS clinicians to participate in the research that we know will benefit our clients and their families. Aligned with this and integral to our success is the importance of developing collegiate and academic connections with other’s who hold like goals.
Examples of CAMHS research over the past five years, some of which are ongoing, include: children’s experiences of trauma in the Adelaide/Kangaroo Island bushfires, mother-infant focussed therapy, better signposting of our commitment to gender diversity and finally, and the efficacy of a group programme to address the deep distress experienced by disaffected, marginalised and unwell young people.
Please contact me if you would like to find out more about research at CAHMS and how you can partner with us.
Email: Jane.Fitzgerald2@sa.gov.au.
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