Westmead. New facilities for research institute

The Ian Potter Foundation, an Australian philanthropic organisation that supports and funds initiatives of excellence and innovation across Australia, together with the Thyne Reid Foundation, and the Westmead Medical Research Foundation have partnered to help fund new facilities in Westmead Millennium Institute for Medical Research’s new building under construction – a research laboratory and a biobank “Expanding these facilities will position Westmead’s health campus to become the leading centre in Australia and an internationally competitive centre for cell production and clinical translational research in adoptive immunotherapy,” said Janet Hirst, CEO of The Ian Potter Foundation.

Westmead. $10 million grant

Professor Phil O’Çonnell, director of the Westmead Millennium Institute for Medical Research’s Centre for Transplantation and Renal Research, is part of a select team of Australian researchers which has received a $10 million National Health and Medical Research (NHMRC) grant from the Australian Government to work on a cure for diabetes.

The team brings together world-renowned Australian researchers who are looking at the role of genetics and autoimmunity that causes diabetes, and the use of pigs to grow replacement insulin-producing cells as a novel treatment for diabetes. Prof O’Connell’s role is in the transplantation and treatment aspects of the program.

Parramatta. leader in medical research

Parramatta City Council said the government’s $30m funding for the stage one, of the new Westmead Millennium Institute has “firmly planted Parramatta and Western Sydney, as a leader when it came to medical research,” said Lord Mayor, John Chedid. The Minister for Health and Medical Research, Jillian Skinner, turned the first sod of the proposed $135m research facility.

Westmead. $30 million for stage one

The Minister for Health and Minister for Medical Research, Jillian Skinner, announced funding of $30 million to go towards the construction of the $135 million stage one of a new headquarters for the Westmead Millennium Institute for Medical Research (WMI), before turning the first sod on the site. The new building will house highly advanced research equipment used by the Westmead Research Hub, and will be a resource for all teaching hospitals in Western Sydney, "Once all staff are housed under the same roof, this facility will become an ideas factory, allowing some of our brightest minds to work collaboratively, and across multiple disciplines," she said. WMI director, Professor Tony Cunningham, said WMI had quadrupled in size over the past 10 years to become one of Australia’s six largest institutes. “About two thirds of our 450 staff now cannot fit into the institute and are working in dated or substandard labs,” he said.