The Charlies Foundation for Research team wants to highlight and congratulate Clinical Professor Michaela Lucas, Dr Amy Prosser and their Immunology and Transplantation Laboratory team on receiving their latest, highly competitive, national grant of $1.6 million from The National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC).

The grant is among the most competitive in Australia, with a national success rate of approximately 8 per cent in 2025 and only five awarded in Western Australia. The success reflects more than a decade of sustained research efforts by the team and provides the funding stability required to advance critical research into organ transplant rejection, with the aim of improving long-term outcomes for patients. 

When patients receive an organ transplant, their immune system can attack and reject the new organ, even with current anti-rejection medicines.  Led by Professor Michaela Lucas and Dr Amy Prosser, the project titled  - Identifying common features of the alloresponse to solid organ transplantation using cell surface proteomics -  will study the specific proteins involved at each stage of this immune reaction in different transplanted organs, as well as the signals immune cells use to move into the organ and cause damage. 

“Receiving this grant is incredibly rewarding and encouraging.” Says Dr Prosser, “Most importantly, this funding gives us the security to plan and perform the best possible science well into the future and expediate our progress for patients.”

A precious commodity, with 1,438 organ transplant patients in Australia in 2025 alone, there are not enough available donated organs to treat every patient in need in a timely manner. The overall goal of the project is to improve the long-term health for people living with transplants and reduce the need for second transplants, which would reduce waiting times and allow more people to receive life-saving organs.

The research is designed to identify proteins involved in the different phases of the immune response. Once these proteins have been identified, they can be developed to diagnose, prevent, and treat rejection. That means better and longer functioning of transplanted organs, less invasive tests, and fewer side effects from immunosuppressive drugs.

This project is an early but crucial step towards new tests and treatments for more effective detection and management of transplanted organ rejection. It focuses on understanding how the immune system behaves during organ rejection, helping to identify specific signals to target with new blood tests and medications.

Dr Prosser also thanked The Foundation for supporting their research -“We have been fortunate to have received long-standing support from the Charlies Foundation for many years. Seed funding from the Foundation allowed us to collect the key data we needed to apply for, and ultimately receive, this very large and competitive grant. Without that evidence, our project would not have been strong enough to be funded, so the Foundation’s support has been absolutely essential.”

Charlies Foundation for Research wish the team all the best with their research and extend out sincerest gratitude toward the incredible life-changing work they do for Western Australian patients.