The IMB Inflazome Translational Award recognises an outstanding IMB researcher working on a project with translational potential. The Award provides $125,000 over one year to accelerate the winner's translational research to enable future competitive funding success, commercialisation or community impact.
The award is funded by royalties from the sale of IMB spin-out company Inflazome Pty Ltd, which was sold to Roche Pharmaceuticals in the biggest biotech deal in Australian history in 2020.
Finalists for the award pitch for the funding in a Shark Tank-style competition at our annual Research Engagement Dinner.
Congratulations to our 2023 Award winner
Professor Kate Schroder | Climbing new frontiers to treat airway diseases
Do you take breathing for granted? In severe COVID19, influenza and asthma attacks, patients struggle to breathe because their lungs are inflamed and battling a virus. This is frightening, dangerous, and difficult to treat as current anti-inflammatory drugs offer limited benefit. We are developing a new class of drug – that precisely blocks a protein called NLRP1 – to revolutionise the treatment of virus-induced airway diseases. Upon encountering a virus, NLRP1 launches dangerous inflammation. We will assess NLRP1 activity in human disease tissue to provide proof-of-concept that patients with acute and chronic airway diseases will benefit from our exciting first-in-class drug candidate.

IMB Inflazome Translational Award Finalists
Dr Harrison Madge | A paradigm shift in treating gut disorders
Dr Hana Starobova | CAN04: We CAN treat neuropathic pain
Dr Conan Wang | The right treatment depends on the right diagnosis
Past Inflazome Translational Award winners
2022: Dr Melanie Oey | Improving wound healing using photosynthetic light
Wound care is a global problem which costs billions of dollars each year. The aging population and increase in chronic disease patients has led to the increasing occurrence of chronic wounds, fueled by poor blood circulation. Oxygen is essential for all wound healing processes, but hyperbaric chamber treatments are seldom used because they are expensive and logistically challenging. I propose to use photosynthetic single cellular algae (microalgae) to develop simple, cheap, “off-the-shelf” wound dressings that continuously supply oxygen. They have the benefits of being antimicrobial, anti-inflammatory, anti-itch and non-stick, support wet wound healing and require infrequent dressing-changes. Algae can provide effective wound healing at the fraction of the cost of current therapies.