An Australian scientist has been awarded a $1 million research grant to develop innovative gene therapy tools for muscle-related diseases.
Dr Paul Gregorevic is developing novel methods of gene therapy in mouse models of muscle-related disease such as Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy.
Currently based in the USA, Dr Gregorevic will return to Australia to continue his research at the Baker Heart Research Institute in Melbourne to identify the key cellular processes underlying the development of specific muscular diseases.
Dr Gregorevic’s in vivo gene delivery may revolutionise current approaches to the treatment of heritable neuromuscular disease, and other conditions such as Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy
Dr Gregorevic commented, “I am very pleased to have been awarded the 2008 Pfizer Australia Research Fellowship. I hope that my research will lead to a better understanding of how muscle diseases develop and thereby help to develop new and effective therapies.”
Dr Daniel Grant, head of Pfizer Australia’s Strategic Alliances Group, said: "Dr Gregorevic is an outstanding young scientist who we believe will make a substantial contribution to our understanding of the underlying mechanisms of muscle disease. We are very pleased to be able to provide the support needed to bring Dr Gregorevic back to continue his research career in Australia”.
Dr Gregorevic is the Acting Assistant Professor at the University of Washington Paul D Wellstone Muscular Dystrophy Co-operative Research Centre. In 2008, he will relocate his research program to the Baker Heart Research Institute in Melbourne.
Dr Gregorevic began his research career at the University of Melbourne, and took up a postdoctoral research position at the University of Washington with Dr Jeffrey Chamberlain, the world’s foremost authority on gene therapy approaches for the treatment of Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy.