Annual Report 2015–2016

PROMOTING EXCELLENCE THROUGH THE
NHMRC AWARDS
NHMRC promotes excellence across its areas of influence and research funding by celebrating successes
with NHMRC awards. These annual awards recognise individuals and teams that have made outstanding
contributions and advancements in health through research in 2015–16.
COMMONWEALTH HEALTH MINISTER’S AWARD FOR EXCELLENCE IN
HEALTH AND MEDICAL RESEARCH
Dr Joseph Powell from the University of Queensland was the recipient of the annual Commonwealth Health
Minister’s Award for Excellence in Health and Medical Research for 2016. This prestigious award recognises
outstanding individual achievement by a mid-career Australian researcher.
Dr Powell’s research uses large-scale genomic data to investigate how DNA sequence variants contribute to
human disease. His research is in developing and exploiting new computational and statistical methods to
explore how changes in non-coding DNA cause changes in gene expression that affect disease susceptibility.
Work at this frontier will ultimately benefit the broader community through new approaches to the control of
specific diseases.
PART 1 Overview
As well as the award, Dr Powell received a $50,000 grant that will help his team at the Institute of Molecular
Bioscience at the University of Queensland to further their research.
The award is given to the top-ranked NHMRC Career Development Fellowship recipient.
Career Development Fellowships are highly competitive, four-year fellowships that support the most
outstanding early to mid-career health and medical researchers.
Dr Joseph Powell from the Institute of Molecular Bioscience
at the University of Queensland was the recipient of the
annual Commonwealth Health Minister’s Award for Excellence in
Health and Medical Research for 2016.
Annual Report of the National Health and Medical Research Council 2015–2016
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