Why chronic disease?
Our program is designed to create a cohort of outstanding researchers who use multidisciplinary approaches to discover the cellular basis of chronic diseases. Such ground-breaking discoveries will enable us to develop future disease therapies.
One in two Australians live with a chronic disease, and this prevalence is higher amongst women and in the 45+ age group. The prevalence of chronic disease continues to rise at an alarming rate both in Australia and globally. Common chronic diseases include coronary heart disease, stroke, vascular diseases, diabetes, arthritis, pulmonary disease, neurological dysfunctions and cancer. Such diseases are complex, and the underlying disease-driving processes are often poorly defined.
To address this urgent problem of chronic disease, we need a new generation of interdisciplinary scientists to discover the cellular processes underlying disease. The IMB Chronic Disease cohort will use a suite of sophisticated multidisciplinary techniques to understand how cells drive chronic diseases. This cohort will study how cells divide, move, die and specialise to form tissues, as well as the biology of specific cell structures intimately involved in disease, such as the plasma membrane, endolysosome, mitochondria, lipid droplets and nucleus. The IMB Chronic Disease cohort will reveal how cells and tissues change as we age, how cells respond to stimuli such as mechanical forces, microbes, and circadian rhythms, and how cells initiate common disease-driving pathways such as inflammation. In discovering the cellular basis of chronic diseases, we will be able to harness this new knowledge for therapy.
IMB has extensive national and international collaborations with academics, clinicians, patient groups, not-for-profits and companies interested in solving the problem of chronic diseases. As an IMB cohort candidate, you will benefit from our collaborative networks and cutting-edge techniques to discover new disease-driving mechanisms that tackle the urgent problem of chronic disease.
Statistics from ABS, https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/health/health-conditions-and-risks/chronic-conditions/latest-release