Medicine

Erin Waters

JCU Associate Professor
erin.waters@jcu.edu.au

Shiv Thanigaimani

Senior Research Fellow, Peripheral Vascular Disease (PVD)
shiv.thanigaimani@jcu.edu.au

Alkira Deren

Clinical Research Officer
alkira.venn@jcu.edu.au

Nalita Turner

Research Officer
nalita.turner@jcu.edu.au

Bunmi Malau-Aduli

JCU Professor
bunmi.malauaduli@jcu.edu.au

Jenna Graffini

Research Project Manager
jenna.graffini@jcu.edu.au

Mel Muscat

Adjunct Research Fellow
melody.muscat@jcu.edu.au

Yvonne Hornby-Turner

Adjunct Research Fellow
yvonne.hornbyturner@jcu.edu.au

Geoffrey Dobson

Professor
geoffrey.dobson@jcu.edu.au

Consumer and Community Research Partnerships: Enabling capacity and strength in rural, regional, and remote northern Queensland health and medical research

Karen Johnston

01 Jan 2025 - 31 Dec 2026

Consumer and community involvement in health and medical research can meaningfully improve research and associated health outcomes by incorporating lived experience into a research project. Anecdotally, there is limited consumer and community involvement occurring in investigator-led research within hospitals and health services in northern Queensland. This research will explore the unique capabilities, opportunities, and motivations for consumer and community involvement in research among three northern Queensland rural, regional, and remote hospital and health services. Strategies will be identified to enable consumer and community involvement in research within these health services, prioritised by consumers, community members and health researchers. It is anticipated that strategies and learnings from this project can be adapted more broadly to northern Australia, particularly other rural, regional, and remote contexts.

Training for Health Equity Network Graduate Outcomes Study

Karen Johnston

01 Jul 2013

Community-Led Approaches to Teaching Australian South Sea Islander History

Michelle Redman-MacLaren

01 Jan 2025 - 31 Dec 2030

ARC Discovery Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Award This project argues that a new approach to teaching Australian South Sea Islander history in primary and secondary school education is urgently needed to address conditions by which Australian South Sea Islander students are made disadvantaged at school. Through a Tok Stori methodological approach that draws on community knowledges, this project will develop new ways of teaching Australian South Sea Islander history. It will work towards implementing the kind of meaningful progress that failed to follow the 1993 Recognition, build transnational research links, and increase and strengthen the capacity of Australian South Sea Islander educators and researchers.

Community-Led Approaches to Teaching Australian South Sea Islander History

Michelle Redman-MacLaren

01 Jan 2025 - 31 Dec 2030

Is inositol a potential therapy for abdominal aortic aneurysm? (Old ID 22440)

Joseph Moxon

01 Dec 2015 - 31 Dec 2017

AIMS: Preliminary data demonstrate that inositol consumption limits experimental AAA development. This project builds on initial findings using the following aims: assess the ability of inositol to limit AAA growth (Aim 1) and rupture (Aim 2) in mouse models. SIGNIFICANCE: Identifying a drug to slow AAA growth and limit rupture has potential to improve patient care and reduce in-hospital costs associated with AAA management. OUTCOMES: This study will underpin competitive funding applications to the NHMRC and/or NFHMRI to further assess inositol status in human AAA patients.

An Australian social prescribing implementation framework: Piloting a co-design approach

Karen Carlisle

01 Jul 2025 - 30 Dec 2025

This pilot project will use a co-design approach to inform an implementation framework for social prescribing tailored to the Australian context. Through a series of workshops and interviews with key stakeholders—including service providers and consumers—investigators will identify systemic and operational challenges, opportunities for improvement, and the support structures needed for sustainable implementation. This participatory, iterative process will enable stakeholders to prioritise key areas of focus, ensuring the development of the framework is grounded in real-world needs and responsive to Australia’s diverse health and social care environments. Findings will be shared with the broader sector and will inform a subsequent large-scale funding application to co-design, implement, and evaluate a national social prescribing framework.

Priorities for expanding clinical trials in non-metropolitan hospitals in north Queensland and the Northern Territory: A holistic multiple case study approach. (Priorities4Trials)

Karen Carlisle

23 Oct 2025 - 30 Aug 2029

Clinical trials offer safe access to experimental tests and treatments not otherwise available, while also providing participants best-practice healthcare and monitoring for the target condition. Participation by people living in rural, regional and remote (RRR) areas of Australia is significantly less than people living in cities due to limited access. RRR health services have many challenges in conducting clinical trials, particularly due to limited resources spread over vast geographical area. This project aims to explore clinical trial capability, capacity, community priorities and perceived importance in hospitals across northern Australia. A multiple case study approach will be used to address the aims of this project. Four cases, consisting of the single largest hospital facility in a RRR health service/region and the immediate surrounding community, will be selected from within north Queensland and the Northern Territory. To answer the research questions of the project, a series of three studies, using multiple methods, will be conducted within each case where findings will be analysed within and across cases.