Leading immunology research centre coming to WEHI

The Snow Medical Research Foundation has announced it will establish one of the world’s leading immunology research centres at the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute (WEHI), through a partnership with an initial commitment of $100 million over 10 years. This makes it one of the largest and longest-running philanthropic partnerships in Australian history, allowing researchers to move away from incremental science towards solving the grand challenges of immunology.

“We empower bold transformative research across Australia by backing the best and brightest researchers — and resourcing them with the tools they need to be world-class,” said Snow Medical Chair Tom Snow.

“We searched the country to find the best teams with the brightest ideas, and we chose to home this project at WEHI as we are confident it will help transform the lives of so many Australians with immunological disease.”

“Australia has some of the best researchers in the world — we want to get them out of short-term funding cycles and give them freedom to experiment and take risks,” added Terry Snow AM, philanthropist and Snow Medical founder.

“WEHI researchers have always been known for their outstanding commitment to excellence. They presented us with a bold and ambitious vision for Australian research — they’re going to change the lives of millions of Australians living with immune health issues.”

The Snow Centre for Immune Health will be co-led by WEHI and The Royal Melbourne Hospital and will bring together a team of leading Australian and international researchers to transform how we research and treat the immune system. The centre will look at immune health and the immune system from a whole-of-system, whole-of-person perspective, to deliver transformational real and measurable impacts for patients living with debilitating autoimmune diseases. It is also hoped that the centre will translate discoveries made in the lab to benefits for patients at unprecedented scale and speed.

WEHI Acting Director Professor Alan Cowman said the Snow Centre for Immune Health will completely change the way we view the immune system, with the ambitious aim of revolutionising healthcare delivery to be about proactively predicting and preventing, instead of reacting to and treating, immune illness and disorders.

“While research into immune health has traditionally focused on specific diseases or cells, the Snow Centre for Immune Health will invert this and look at the immune system from a ‘whole-of-system’ perspective — like we do for the cardiovascular and respiratory systems,” he said.

“The centre will rapidly accelerate this growing field of research and do it at a scale not seen anywhere else in the world.

“We are deeply grateful to the Snow Medical Research Foundation and the Snow family for their vision, boldness and generosity in backing this talented team and their revolutionary approach to how we understand and treat immune disease.”

“This extraordinary investment from the Snow Medical Research Foundation has the power to solve some of the greatest puzzles in the human body,” added former WEHI Director Dr Doug Hilton, who played an instrumental role in co-developing the vision for the centre with the Snow family.

“The scale of the centre, as well as the long-term backing of some of the brightest scientists in the country by the Snow family, will help accelerate this research for the good of the community.”

As well as funding the next generation of talented young researchers, the Snow Medical partnership will fund Snow Research Clinics, initially with founding partner The Royal Melbourne Hospital and then progressively across Victoria. The clinics will allow patients to join immune system trials, while also concurrently treating those most at need with the best and latest research treatments.

The Royal Melbourne Hospital’s Professor Jo Douglass, who will co-lead the centre, said the long-term vision and funding from the Snow Medical Research Foundation will ensure her team can move beyond the short-term thinking that currently slows down major research discoveries from being translated.

“The integrated design of the Snow Centre for Immune Health will ensure the best treatments are immediately available to patients in the clinic,” she said.

“This signals a new era of partnership and reflects our shared purpose of building highly impactful and multidisciplinary research together.  The Royal Melbourne Hospital looks forward to building on its commitment to research excellence for the best of health for all Victorians, the wider community and beyond.”

Image caption: Royal Melbourne Hospital Director of Research and Snow Centre Co-Director Professor Jo Douglass; WEHI Acting Director Professor Alan Cowman; Royal Melbourne Hospital Chief Executive Professor Shelley Dolan; Snow Medical founder Ginette Snow; and WEHI Immunology Joint Division Head and Snow Centre Co-Director Professor Phil Hodgkin. Image credit: WEHI.