Charles Perkins Centre announces inaugural Jennie Mackenzie Research Fund recipients
Funding of almost $3.5 million has been awarded to eight research projects as part of the inaugural round of the Charles Perkins Centre Jennie Mackenzie Research Fund.
Among the new projects funded is the CPC RPA Clinical research platform, a partnership between the Charles Perkins Centre and Sydney Local Health District; the Mackenzie Wearables Research Hub using personal wearable devices in research; and the CPC Data Hub which increases the Centre’s capacity in data-intensive research with direct translational impact in health and medical research.
The Jennie Mackenzie Research Fund was established from the Jennie Mackenzie Bequest, one of the largest individual donations to the University of Sydney. The bequest of $20 million was made by the Charles Perkins Centre’s long-time friend and supporter, Jennie Mackenzie, to support the Centre’s research, education and clinical work in obesity, diabetes, cardiovascular disease and related conditions, with an emphasis on stewarding early- and mid-career researchers. Objectives of the awards are to amplify research strengths at CPC, to enable innovative new collaborations, and to invest in platforms that build the research capacity available to CPC members.
The Jennie Mackenzie Research Fund supports platforms and initiatives that amplify the unique research strengths at the Centre. The Fund focuses on projects that capitalise on aggregated expertise in specific areas developed over our first decade, to build research capacity and provide opportunities for further collaboration across different disciplines within the University and beyond.
“We are thrilled with the outcomes of the inaugural funding round. We have awarded eight projects that reflect the breadth of our research and collaboration and help to reconceive the systems of health,” said Professor Stephen Simpson, Charles Perkins Centre Academic Director.
“As a part of the next phase of the Charles Perkins Centre’s strategic development, the Jennie Mackenzie Research Fund supports platforms and initiatives that amplify the unique research strengths at the Centre. The Fund focuses on projects that capitalise on aggregated expertise in specific areas developed over our first decade, to build research capacity and provide opportunities for further collaboration across different disciplines within the University and beyond,” he said.
The CPC EMCR Initiative – the Centre’s early and mid-career researcher community – has also been recognised and further supported. The CPC EMCR Initiative has played a significant role at the Charles Perkins Centre since its establishment in 2012 and its structure and governance model has been much copied throughout the University. Jennie Mackenzie was particularly supportive of early-career researchers, stewarding and mentoring a number of Charles Perkins Centre members, whose careers have developed into senior roles.
Just ten years after the Centre’s inception – celebrating its first decade in 2022 – the Jennie Mackenzie Research Fund illustrates all that the Charles Perkins Centre represents: world-class research, training and clinical collaboration to find solutions to global health problems while building ongoing connections collaborators and supporters.
Jennie Mackenzie receiving an Honorary Fellowship of the University of Sydney, 2018.
“We’re not only collaborating across disciplines at the University of Sydney, but nationally and internationally. Jennie was a close and dear friend whose professional experience was invaluable in fostering our early career researchers. Her desire to support early career researchers is reflected in the award to the Charles Perkins Centre EMCR Initiative as well as the inclusion of healthy EMCR presence in each of the projects. Jennie’s contribution to the Charles Perkins Centre was the perfect philanthropic relationship and a true collaboration. We are proud to see her legacy continue,” said Professor Simpson.
The eight projects awarded support from the Jennie Mackenzie Research Fund:
- The Mackenzie Wearables Research Hub at the Charles Perkins Centre
- CPC RPA Clinical research platform
- Towards a nutritional sociology: Bridging nutrition and social sciences in food systems research
- CPC Data Hub
- Obesity across the lifespan: A Charles Perkins Centre platform for the comprehensive study of severe and complicated obesity in a family context
- Expansion of the CPC EMCR Initiative to support emerging researchers
- Understanding the impact of lifestyle on immune homeostasis and health: A feasibility study in the Pacific
- Charles Perkins Centre, University of Sydney–College of Medicine, Veterinary and Life Sciences, University of Glasgow: Joint PhD program.
The Charles Perkins Centre is an exemplar of the excellence of our multidisciplinary initiatives. The Charles Perkins Centre was the first MDI and I’m thrilled to see that a unique relationship with Jennie Mackenzie is now enabling the next generation of researchers, educators and clinicians
Further support in co-matched funding equates to almost $1 million, making this the largest Charles Perkins Centre-generated funding to CPC-enabled collaborative projects since the Centre’s inception in 2012. The Fund encourages researchers to unlock or explore new sources of external funding to strengthen the Fund’s support.
“The Charles Perkins Centre is an exemplar of the excellence of our multidisciplinary initiatives. The Charles Perkins Centre was the first MDI and I’m thrilled to see that a unique relationship with Jennie Mackenzie – embedding Jennie at the Charles Perkins Centre as a collaborator – is now enabling not only the next phase of the Centre’s strategy but also the next generation of researchers, educators and clinicians,” said Professor Kathy Belov, Pro Vice-Chancellor (Global Research and Engagement).
“Congratulations to the Charles Perkins Centre and each of the eight projects funded by its inaugural Jennie Mackenzie Research Fund awards.”
Charles Perkins Centre Jennie Mackenzie Research Fund 2023
The Mackenzie Wearables Research Hub at the Charles Perkins Centre (Mackenzie WearHub @ CPC) is a platform enabling researchers to design, undertake and disseminate high-quality research using commercial and personal wearable devices for the measurement of physical activity, movement, posture, and sleep, across all age groups. It is a free or low-cost consultation and hands-on support platform available to research teams from the University providing opportunities for collaboration across faculties and schools. The Mackenzie WearHub @ CPC supports part of the early consultation services will involve sharing materials and providing training to other ECRs who are based in the research teams the Mackenzie WearHub @ CPC will be supporting. Occasionally we will be organising educational and research capacity events open to the wider University community and some will be targeted at early career researchers, in collaboration with CPC’s EMCR community.
Project leads
Professor Emmanuel Stamatakis
Award
$629,500 | Three years
The CPC RPA Clinical research platform is the next step in the CPC RPA Clinic’s evolution, transforming the conduct of clinical and translational research into an integrated and cohesive system that assists both early-stage and established investigators throughout the lifecycle of a research study. This platform facilitates our clinicians and investigators to conduct innovative, high-quality, cost-effective, safe, and ethical interdisciplinary clinical and translational research, including lifestyle, drug and investigational product development. The CPC RPA Clinic will employ two EMCRs: a senior dietitian and research support lead with expertise in nutrition, clinical trial design and operations, as well as an exercise physiologist, enabling conduct of high-quality research. EMCRs at the CPC RPA Clinic will have access to this platform.
Project leads
Professor Luigi Fontana
Associate Professor Samantha Hocking
Award
$460,000 | Two years
Co-contribution
Sydney Local Health District (SLHD) provides resource and platform support
An important trend in the nutrition sciences has been the increasing prominence of systems models that integrate biological and environmental factors into causal explanations – for example, food systems frameworks, nutritional ecology, and ecological models of public health. The Charles Perkins Centre has deep disciplinary expertise and substantial interdisciplinary connectivity across biology and behaviour including systems metabolism and diet selection, but less so the societal aspects of human food environments that drive variation in behaviour, metabolism and social outcomes such as nutrient inequalities. This asymmetry is fundamental because in many instances the primary causes of chronic diseases are situated in the dynamics of the social environment - structural factors influencing consumption of ultra-processed foods and alcohol - and it is there that interventions should be sought. We will develop a research-based nexus between nutrition at CPC and the Sydney Centre for Healthy Societies (SCHS), that expands our interdisciplinary reach to encompass biological and societal aspects of diet, and their interaction. In recognition of the importance of this integration, SCHS has co-funded a Postdoctoral Fellowship with expertise in social sciences and health to develop the collaborative handshake between CPC and SCHS and help to integrate both centres with the developing new Food Systems Multidisciplinary Initiative (MDI).
Project leads
Professor David Raubenheimer
Professor Alex Broom
Award
$152,000 | Two years
Co-contribution
Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences and Sydney Centre for Healthy Societies are matching funding
The Data Hub increases the Charles Perkins Centre’s capacity in data-intensive research with direct translational impact in biomedical and metabolomics health research and beyond. The Data Hub will provide methodological, context-specific expertise and innovative strategies for data analysis of high-throughput data for CPC researchers. The Hub will enable the exchange of experiences in tailor-made data analysis templates and build a much-demanded capacity for using large-population databases. Innovation will be realised by applying and capturing insights from the thinking process which is critical to the central workflow of the Data Hub. The creation of the analytics repository will be imperative to working towards precision data approaches and will be an invaluable resource to the CPC community. CPC EMCRs will be involved at multiple levels including comprising 50 percent of the project team, representation on the Data Hub Steering Committee, and providing a vibrant environment to recruit data science ECRs.
Project leads
Professor Jean Yang
Professor David James
Amount
$1,360,000 | Three years
Co-contribution
$189,000 across three years from the Faculty of Science School of Mathematics and Statistics to cover teaching duties
Obesity across the lifespan supports the development of a clinical research platform for the comprehensive study of people with severe and complicated obesity, including solutions identification. The project team will establish a longitudinal cohort and platform of people with severe and complicated obesity, provide a well-characterised population for clinical trials, and inform effective policy and health planning in obesity. This platform will facilitate CPC-led studies in specific subgroups and inform future grant applications to pilot, implement, and evaluate novel interventions in patient of the Nepean Blue Mountains Family Metabolic Health Service (a unique and well-established service, which sees ~500 individuals annually, and manages individuals with severe and/or complicated obesity across the lifespan in four age-specific clinics in Greater Western Sydney). The project is led by Dr Williams, an MCR, and includes nine EMCRs in the team. The project supports an interdisciplinary research group, including EMCRS, to build collaborations, facilitate research and produce internationally recognised real-world research in the understudied disease of severe and complicated obesity.
Project leads
Professor Natasha Nassar
Award
$459,000 | Three years
Co-contribution
$490,000 from sources including the Nepean and Blue Mountains Local Health District and the Ministry of Health
This CPC EMCR Initiative’s project ‘Nurturing science’ led by the CPC EMCR Initiative Steering Committee for its membership. The Steering Committee currently comprises 13 members of the CPC community (PhD to post-doctoral fellows) and provides financial support to deserving emerging researchers for the establishment of seed and pilot projects central to career progression. This includes building project leadership skills, research independence, research-related travel and professional development vital for networking and collaboration and track-record development.
Project leads
Ms Emma Bryant
Dr Philip Clare
Dr Louise Cottle
Award
$150,000 | Three years
Co-contribution
The Charles Perkins Centre program funds and The Nicholas Catchlove Early Career Researcher Development fund
Understanding the impact of lifestyle on immune homeostasis and health presents a unique approach to understanding the link between chronic inflammation and the exposome (sum of all environmental factors) by comparing people from common genetic backgrounds living exposed to various degrees of westernisation in the Pacific Islands of Vanuatu. This project will first establish feasibility by developing a collaborative network between the Charles Perkins Centre and the University of Port Villa in Vanuatu, to understand the process for ethics approval in Vanuatu, to have access to lifestyle assessments, blood samples for immune profiling and stool to study the gut microbiota. This project is a synergy between two existing Charles Perkins Centre nodes Children and adolescents’ health and wellbeing in the Pacific ode and the Nutrition and immune-metabolism.
Project leads
Professor Laurence Macia
Professor Ralph Nanan
Professor Jakelin Troy
Award
$50,000 | One year
The University of Sydney and University of Glasgow's joint PhD program will see two candidates given the opportunity to undertake research supervision by leading researchers across both institutions. This program builds on existing partnerships between the University of Sydney’s Charles Perkins Centre and the University of Glasgow’s College of Medical, Veterinary and Life Sciences, and managed by the University of Sydney Office of Global and Research Engagement. Each institution will recruit one PhD candidate co-supervised by senior researchers from both institutions, and candidates will work across both institutions to obtain their degree, providing access to a wider range of expertise and resources, and allowing a more comprehensive understanding of their research area. Two PhD candidates will be recruited to this program.
Project leads
Professor Stephen Simpson
Ms Susan McColl
Amount
$115,000 | Three years
Co-contribution
Matched funding from the University of Glasgow and strategic support from the University of Sydney Office of Global Research Engagement
Charles Perkins Centre researchers interested in pursuing projects relating to one of the platforms are encouraged to engage with the project leads in the first instance to investigate collaborations.