A new Australian National University scholarship will provide $70,000 a year to a junior clinician researching personalised treatments for complex autoimmune and genetic disorders.
Applications have opened for the 2027 Zinkernagel Medical PhD Scholarship, which will support a clinician undertaking a PhD in the Personalised Medicine and Autoimmunity Laboratory at ANU’s recently opened Centre for Personalised Medicine.
The scholarship is named after Professor Rolf Zinkernagel, who completed his PhD at the university’s John Curtin School of Medical Research in 1975 and shared the 1996 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.
The centre examines the cellular and genetic causes of illness to determine which treatments are likely to work for individual patients. Its work includes rheumatoid arthritis, inflammatory bowel disease, lupus and myositis.
Grace Weekley, 21, was referred to the centre after spending years on steroid medications for an unexplained loss of vision that began when she was 14.
“For so long, I was on different steroid medications, which were helping but the side effects were horrible. I had to give up playing sport or doing anything active, and as a teenager, that really affected me. Finally, we were referred to Dr Jiang (Director of the Centre), whose research validated that one of the medications I was on was safe and effective long term, and I could drop off the others. It helped me to recognise myself again – it was a godsend,” Grace said.
Her condition is now stable and she has stopped taking several of the medications previously prescribed to her.
“I was so lucky to have been seen by amazing doctors, who did everything they could to treat me (and did provide the medicine I needed to be on), but they could only do so much. The doctors at the Centre for Personalised Medicine were able to go further and determine exactly what I needed based on my genetics,” Ms Weekley said.
The scholarship will focus on clinically oriented immunology and the use of modern research methods in medical practice. The laboratory is led by the centre’s director, Associate Professor Simon Jiang.
“Through the Zinkernagel Scholarship, we are investing directly in junior clinicians who are passionate about research. By training them in advanced genomics and personalised therapies, we are empowering them in these highly specialised, life-saving treatments, thereby transforming patient outcomes nationwide,” Associate Professor Jiang said.
Applications for the 2027 scholarship close on October 31.
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