Dr Jiao Jiao Li plans to use stem cells as biofactories to make drugs to reduce inflammation and encourage repair in painful osteoarthritic joints.

Osteoarthritis is a hugely debilitating joint disease with few treatment options.  Injecting stem cells to repair damaged joints has shown inconsistent and poor long-term results and the potential for adverse side effects.

“I believe it would be safer and more effective to use stem cells to create healing biomolecules and inject those instead,” says Jiao Jiao, a bioengineer at University of Technology Sydney.

Jiao Jiao works across disciplines, using artificial intelligence, bioengineering, nanotechnology and stem cell science to develop new stem cell-derived treatments – initially for osteoarthritis but potentially for a wide range of other diseases.

She has a track record in bone repair, having developed a ceramic-based scaffold that becomes populated by the patient’s own stem cells to regrow sections of bone.

In recognition of her leadership in the field, Jiao Jiao has received one of two 2023 $60,000 Metcalf Prizes from the National Stem Cell Foundation of Australia.

People diagnosed with late-stage stomach cancer have a less than 10 per cent chance of surviving more than 5 years.

Dr Dustin Flanagan wants to boost that survival rate by understanding why some deviant stomach stem cells turn cancerous. This knowledge will help in the development of drugs to bring these misbehaving cells back to normal, healthy function.

Dustin’s past research has led to the development of treatments for Crohn’s disease, bowel cancer, and other gastrointestinal conditions.

He’s now at Monash Biomedicine Discovery Institute turning his attention to stomach cancer, which is less common than bowel cancer but just as lethal.

In recognition of his leadership in the field, Dustin has received one of two 2023 $60,000 Metcalf Prizes from the National Stem Cell Foundation of Australia.

Winners of the 2022 National Stem Cell Foundation of Australia’s Metcalf Prizes announced

SCIENTISTS AVAILABLE FOR INTERVIEWS:

• Anai Gonzalez-Cordero: full profile and photos
• Ashley Ng: full profile and photos

Researchers working with stem cells to restore sight and fight blood cancers are the two winners of the 2022 Metcalf Prizes for Stem Cell Research, awarded by the National Stem Cell Foundation of Australia.

Dr Anai Gonzalez-Cordero research aims to restore sight in people with inherited retinal diseases, by repairing or replacing damaged photoreceptor (light-sensing) cells in the eye.  

She has already shown that she can grow cultures of healthy photoreceptor cells in a dish in the lab and then use the cells replace the defective cells and restore sight in laboratory models of hereditary blindness. And she has shown that gene therapy can repair diseased human retinal cells grown in the lab as ‘mini-organs’ (or ‘organoids’), providing them with normal light-sensing ability. 

Her $55,000 Metcalf Prize will contribute to developing systems to progress both concepts towards clinical trials. She is based at Children’s Medical Research Institute (CMRI) in Western Sydney.  

Dr Ashley Ng is revealing how blood stem cells are controlled, and how they sometime go rogue, leading to blood cancers. He has discovered how a protein known as ‘ERG’ underpins healthy development of blood cells, and how it also plays a role in Down syndrome-associated leukaemia and a range of other blood cancers.

As a researcher at WEHI and a clinician at the Royal Melbourne Hospital and Peter Mac, Ashley will use his $55,000 Metcalf Prize to advance his ideas from the laboratory into treatments for blood and blood cancer diseases.

Media release: Monday 22 August 2022

Online public event to share the latest science and answer patient questions: Thursday 25 August

Scientists available for interviews. Contact Tanya Ha, 0404 083 863, tanya@scienceinpublic.com.au

• Could we boost a failing heart with ‘muscle patches’?
• Could a stem cell injection help heart tissue regenerate?
• Can mini hearts in a petri dish solve the mystery of 2,400 babies born with heart disease?
• And can they explain what COVID is doing to our hearts?
• Heart disease kills more than 18,500 Australians a year but that’s going to change. Not tomorrow, but in the coming decades.

Two of Australia’s leading stem cell researchers are available for interview to discuss their vision for healing broken hearts.

They’re part of the panel presenting at a national online event Future Medicine: Healing the Heart held by the health charity the National Stem Cell Foundation of Australia to provide people with access to experts and reliable information.

More ‘good cells’, safer treatments for leukaemia patients – Siok Tey, Brisbane

Making a virtual human cell to explore how we’re made and how we can regenerate damaged organs – Pengyi Yang, Sydney

WINNERS OF THE NATIONAL STEM CELL FOUNDATION OF AUSTRALIA’S METCALF PRIZES ANNOUNCED TODAY

SCIENTISTS AVAILABLE FOR INTERVIEWS:

• Siok Tey: full profile and photos
• Pengyi Yang: full profile and photos

Research to improve bone marrow transplantation and to use computer science to understand how stem cells work has won two Australian researchers $55,000 each in the annual Metcalf Prizes for Stem Cell Research, awarded by the National Stem Cell Foundation of Australia.

Associate Professor Siok Tey is researching treatments that will improve the survival and quality of life for her patients with leukaemia or other blood cancers.

“Bone marrow transplantation is an important form of treatment for blood cancers, but it cures only two-thirds of patients,” says Siok, a clinician researcher at QIMR Berghofer Medical Research Institute and Royal Brisbane and Women’s Hospital.

Siok will use her $55,000 Metcalf Prize to improve the outcomes of bone marrow transplantation, which rebuilds the blood and immune systems to protect patients from leukaemia relapse. Not all patients, however, stay in long-term remission, and the treatment often comes with serious side effects.

 Dr Pengyi Yang plans to transform stem cell research.

“Today’s stem cell treatments have been the product of trial and error. My virtual stem cell will allow us to understand what’s happening inside a single stem cell that makes it decide what type of cell it will become, be it hair, skin, muscle, nerve, blood or other.”

He is mapping the many, complex influences that control stem cells and how they specialise into different cell types.

Pengyi is based at the Children’s Medical Research Institute and at The University of Sydney. He aims to remove much of the guess work from stem cell science and eventually stem cell medicine.

In recognition of his leadership in the field, Pengyi has received one of two annual $55,000 Metcalf Prizes from the National Stem Cell Foundation of Australia.