Valuable support from the Raine Medical Research Foundation’s 2025 grant round will power four new research projects at The Kids Research Institute Australia.
Congratulations to:
- Dr Maria Emilia Dueñas, Postdoctoral Researcher at The Kids, awarded a 2025 Raine Priming Grant of $230,138 for her project Uncovering protective targets for next-generation mucosal vaccines against Strep A. Dr Dueñas will use state-of-the-art techniques to generate a comprehensive proteomic profile of systemic and mucosal immune responses to Strep A in both sera and saliva during infection. Using unique pharyngitis sample cohorts from Western Australian children and adults, this project seeks to uncover protective targets for next-generation mucosal vaccines. This project will establish a crucial foundation for advancing the first-ever mucosal Strep A vaccine, ultimately leading to clinical trials and global prevention efforts.
- Dr Jessica Buck, Head of First Nations Childhood Cancer Research at The Kids, awarded a Research Collaboration Award of $59,775 to develop culturally safe frameworks to enable precision medicine for First Nations children with cancer. This collaborative project is led by three Aboriginal early-career researchers – Dr Jessica Buck (Kamilaroi), Dr Rachel Joyce (Wayilwan) from the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute in Victoria, and Dr Justine Clark (Adnyamathanha) from The Kids in Adelaide. It is also a collaboration with the ZERO Childhood Cancer Program at the Children’s Cancer Institute in NSW. The project aims to close the gap in outcomes for First Nations children with cancer.
- Dr Kak-Ming Ling, a Postdoctoral Researcher at The Kids, has received a Research Collaboration Award of $59,571 to bring together teams from Australia and Singapore to develop new treatments for infections caused by non-tuberculous mycobacteria (NTM). NTM are particularly challenging to treat. Researchers from The Kids and Nanyang Technological University will employ advanced techniques to isolate and study bacteriophages (viruses that can kill bacteria) that can target NTM. The ultimate goal of this research is to develop new, targeted therapies that can help patients with chronic lung and other NTM-related infections, particularly in Oceania and the Asia-Pacific region.
- Dr Stephanie Enkel, a Postdoctoral Researcher at The Kids, has won a Research Collaboration Award of $45,020 to investigate how leadership and community engagement shape child health delivery in systems under pressure. This project brings together The Kids, The University of Western Australia, the Princeton Center for Health and Wellbeing, and the World Bank. The collaboration will explore values, relationships, and system-level enablers that help programs succeed where others stall, informing a practical leadership framework, co-designed tools for implementers and policymakers, and targeted training to build capacity in child health program delivery.
Raine Priming Grants support health and medical research for individuals at an early stage in their research career, particularly those who are progressing towards an independent research career, to assist them in becoming more competitive for national and international funding.
Research Collaboration Awards encourage medical researchers in Western Australia to establish and develop research collaborations, both nationally and internationally, to seek a better understanding of the nature, origin, and cause of human diseases, and their prevention and treatment.
In the 2025 grant round, the Foundation has awarded more than $3.2 million in funding for medical research set to commence in 2026.
Find find out more about the Raine Medical Research Foundation.