Targeted Clinical Research Fellowships 2025 (TCRF) recipient Edward Stephens, UQ PhD student, UQ Thoracic Research Centre at The Prince Charles Hospital.
The research capabilities and successes of Queensland Health were recently at the forefront thanks to this year’s Queensland Health Research Excellence Showcase.
The Queensland Health Research Excellence Showcase provided the chance to hear from local and international experts and explored opportunities to grow healthcare and medical research and innovation.
It also offered an insight into home grown projects being undertaken by some of the state’s best and brightest health researchers and innovators, recognising local research and solutions that will improve the health of Queenslanders, and support clinician researchers to advance their work.
Research is often the quiet achiever of the health sector, but this annual showcase gives our local researchers and innovators a chance to shine.
As part of the showcase, several Queensland Health researchers were in the running for three awards for research excellence. These recognised outstanding and leading-edge research that is finding solutions for some of the sector’s greatest medical or health-related challenges and will ultimately benefit the health of Queenslanders.
Nominations for these awards were received from all over Queensland and award winners receive $3,500 each to directly support furthering their impactful work.
Award recipients were the:
- Emergency Department Research Collaborative Research Group at Gold Coast Hospital and Health Service (HHS), who have undertaken randomised controlled trials to speed up the adoption of evidence-based practice. This has led to better and less invasive treatment options for various conditions, and also improved patient outcomes.
- SIMPLE Hub at Darling Downs Hospital and Health Service, which has established itself as a model for collaborative research excellence. The hub is making groundbreaking contributions to sustainable medical innovation and the development of future-ready researchers in the region.
- The Integrated Theranostics Centre at Princess Alexandra Hospital, Metro South Hospital and Health Service Research, which is one of the few locations offering theranostics for difficult to treat cancers through groundbreaking clinical trials. Theranostics uses targeted radiopharmaceuticals for precise cancer diagnosis and treatment, providing highly effective, personalised care.
Fifteen Targeted Clinical Research Fellowships (TCRF) were also announced at the showcase, awarded to individuals in the categories of novice researcher, rural and remote researcher, genomics research, and women and girl’s health research.
These Fellowships are designed to support the career development of Queensland Health’s emerging clinician researchers and research leaders and provide invaluable support for health and medical research projects that have real potential to lead to better health outcomes for Queenslanders.
This is the second round of the Targeted Clinical Research Fellowships, with successful recipients sharing in $1.6 million worth of funding for research across four areas.
Fellows were selected by expert panels, in a competitive process that attracted applications from clinicians all over the state.
Here’s a snapshot from four of the Fellowship recipients, as they share some of the valuable research projects happening behind the scenes in Queensland.
Professor Ian Yang, a Thoracic Physician and Director of Thoracic Medicine at The Prince Charles Hospital, and Head of The Prince Charles Hospital’s Northside Clinical Unit, and Edward Stephens, UQ PhD student, UQ Thoracic Research Centre at The Prince Charles Hospital
For Targeted Clinical Research Fellowships 2025 (TCRF) recipients Professor Ian Yang and UQ PhD student Edward Stephens, the Fellowship will enable the continuation of important research into the genetic markers of lung cancer that will hopefully one day lead to a breath test to detect the early stages of lung cancer.
“Research grants such as the TCRF Fellowship allow us to keep working towards our common goal of improving cancer survival and delivering equitable care to everyone at risk,” Professor Yang said.
“Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer related death in Australia and around the world, and is often associated exclusively with cigarette smoking, but the reality is that up to 1 in 4 cases of lung cancer arise in people who have never smoked.
“The Australian National Lung Cancer Screening Program, which recently came into effect, is likely to reduce lung cancer deaths in Australia significantly, however, exclusively targets people with a heavy smoking history.
“As a result, people with lung cancer who have never smoked may face worse disease outcomes due to delayed diagnosis and treatment. This, however, can be combated by identifying tumours early.
“With this funding, we aim to set the groundwork to develop a simple breath test that can be used to detect lung cancer in people who have never smoked at an early stage.
“We foresee a future where lung cancer, and other chronic diseases, can be diagnosed in a cheap, easy, and accessible way, through a simple ‘breath biopsy’.”
TCRF Fellowship 2025 recipient Edward Stephens at the University of Queensland’s (UQ) Thoracic Research Centre.
UQ PhD student, UQ Thoracic Research Centre at The Prince Charles Hospital, Edward Stephens, said the funding provided by the TCRF will allow us to investigate microscopic particles that are released in exhaled breath, which contain the genetic markers of lung cancer.
“When detected, these markers will allow us to diagnose lung cancer at an early stage, in patients who otherwise may not receive a diagnosis until their disease has progressed,” he said.
“This will then allow the delivery of life-saving cancer treatment to these patients, ultimately improving patient survival and reducing disease burden.”
Dr Henry Marshall, Thoracic Physician at The Prince Charles Hospital and Associate Professor at the University of Queensland’s Thoracic Research Centre
Dr Henry Marshall is also working on the early diagnosis of lung cancer – but his method is via a blood test.
Dr Henry Marshall
“Lung cancer is hard to diagnose early and that is one of the reasons it is difficult to treat – patients often only develop symptoms once the cancer is advanced,” Dr Marshall said.
“While we now have the national lung cancer screening program using CT scans to pick up lung cancer very early, before symptoms occur, the screening program is not going to be able to pick up all lung cancers.
“For example, not everyone will be able to access a CT scanner, and what about people who are not eligible for the screening program but are still at high risk of lung cancer?
“This led to us thinking what if we had a blood test that could be taken in any clinic or hospital which could help diagnose lung cancer before symptoms occur and allow curative treatments? This is the goal of our project.
“In the first phase of our research, our team of scientists discovered tell-tale chemical markers in lung cancer specimens, specifically changes to certain genes called hypermethylation.
“In this next phase of our research, we will test for these chemical markers in blood. These markers are present in very low levels in blood and are tricky to detect, especially when cancers are small. This is our challenge.
“The funding from the targeted clinical research fellowship program is crucial to support not only our research, but other research that will have an impact on the health of our patients.”
Dr Jocelyn Hume, Molecular Diagnostic Unit at Pathology Queensland
Did you know that antibiotic resistance genes can be transferred between different bacterial cells via small DNA molecules called plasmids?
These plasmids are copying resistance genes from one bacteria into another, rapidly disseminating resistance through an entire bacterial population over a short time span.
Why is this concerning? Because antibiotic resistance means infections are harder to treat as the bacteria causing an illness are not responding to antibiotic treatment. If these plasmids are copying resistant genes – it means antibiotic resistance becomes more widespread, and more and more bacterial illnesses may become resistant to the very antibiotics meant to treat them.
Antibiotic resistance is a growing health issue that is happening on a global scale.
Unfortunately, the transfer of resistant genes from one bacteria to another often occurs in locations that hold our most vulnerable people – hospitals and nursing homes.
Dr Hume, who works in the Molecular Diagnostic Unit at Pathology Queensland, said the Targeted Clinical Research Fellowship (TCRF) would assist in further research to understand more about antibiotic resistance transmission and how it impacts Queenslanders.
She was awarded a TCRF to further investigate the evolution and spread of resistance to last resort antibiotics in South-East Queensland.
“We currently don’t have a proper understanding of how often antibiotic resistant genes are copying from one bacterial species to another, what is causing it or how best to properly prevent it from happening,” Dr Hume said.
“This Fellowship will allow us to investigate antibiotic resistance genes and track the transmission and spread of these genes between bacterial species.”
“This is the first step to understanding outbreaks of antibiotic resistant infections and will put in place a road map to implementing genomic solutions to antimicrobial resistance monitoring and infection control.”
Jocelyn’s Fellowship comes off the back of her completion of a PhD at the University of Queensland, where she developed novel molecular tests to improve diagnosis of cytomegalovirus antiviral resistance - an infection often effecting transplant recipients.
“I feel so fortunate to receive this Fellowship straight out of my PhD and to be able to apply the skills I have gained throughout my studies,” she said.
“I’m very passionate about researching infectious diseases and the possibility of making a real difference in the lives of patients. This Fellowship gives me the platform to pursue that goal and I look forward to the discoveries and collaborations ahead.”