Haematologist Professor Zoe McQuilten has received the NHMRC’s David Cooper Clinical Trials and Cohort Studies Award, which recognises her contributions to haematological and supportive care research.
Announced at a ceremony in Canberra last month, the awards are presented annually to the 14 top-ranked research applicants to NHMRC’s major funding schemes, recognising their contributions to health and medical research.
A consultant haematologist at Monash Health in Melbourne and an NHMRC Emerging Leader Fellow at Monash University, Professor McQuilten has a strong research interest in improving supportive care and transfusion practice in areas of major blood use, such as aplastic anaemia, haematological malignancies, critical care and trauma.
She is deputy director of Monash University’s Transfusion Research Unit and a senior research fellow with the Australian and New Zealand Intensive Care Research Centre.
Professor McQuilten is the lead investigator of the immunoglobulin use and outcomes in chronic lymphocytic leukaemia and Non-Hodgkin lymphoma (ICAN) study conducted through LaRDR and the RATIONAL platform trial on the use of immunoglobulin replacement therapy in blood cancers.
She has also helped establish the world’s largest longitudinal cohort study of clonal haematopoiesis of indeterminate potential (CHIP) in healthy older individuals, leveraging the landmark ASPirin in Reducing Events in the Elderly (ASPREE) study.
Her and her colleagues’ aim is to determine the value of monitoring CHIP in clinical practice, understand the factors that drive clonal expansion, and determine if CHIP leads to disease via changes in inflammatory cytokines.
NHMRC’s chief executive Professor Steve Wesselingh said each Research Excellence Award recognised a pioneer in Australian health and medical science.
“It is only appropriate that Australia’s next generation of researchers are recognised for their work that equally reflects both the qualities exemplified by those that came before them, and their sustained contributions to the sector.”