Cerebral palsy describes a number of debilitating conditions involving impaired movement due to brain damage early in life. Although cerebral palsy mostly originates before birth, diagnosis often has to wait until the second year of life. We propose that 'gene switches' known to be influenced by the environment in the womb can be used to identify which babies will develop cerebral palsy, enabling immediate intervention to help lessen the symptoms of this condition.

Sudden unexplained death in children is a tragic event that can cause further devastating consequences to living family and friends of the deceased child. This proposed Australia-wide research initiative will shed light on the genetic cardiac causes of sudden unexplained death in children, enable clinical screening of at-risk family relatives, and allow the initiation of appropriate therapeutic and preventative strategies, with the primary goal to reduce the incidence of sudden death amongst children in Australia.

Bronchiolitis is the most common severe respiratory tract illness in infants and remains a major cause of hospitalisation. Apart from supportive intervention, there is no treatment. We have found that during bronchiolitis immune cells damage the lung, increasing disease severity and leading to asthma/wheeze in approximately 50% of patients. Recently our lab demonstrated the ability of a protein, feG, to treat such lung damage. We aim to test the therapeutic potential of feG in decreasing lung damage caused by bronchiolitis.

This project involves the development and piloting of the eADVICE-incontinence© program. This program, which is supervised by GPs, mimics multiple visits to a specialist paediatric continence service. It combines assessment, diagnosis, tailored treatment advice, monitoring and feedback and well as education of the GP and families. Parents can also input further information about their child's progress, with modification of the ongoing treatment advice. The program will then be piloted on 50 children with urinary incontinence.

Preterm birth is the leading cause of neonatal death and disease in Australia. Although infection and inflammation are established as the primary causes of early preterm birth, we do not understand how they impact the fetus early in pregnancy.

Our new second trimester sheep model will allow us to study infection and inflammation in early pregnancy. This study will help us understand how early preterm birth occurs and help develop treatments to improve the health of babies and their mothers.

This project examines the efficacy of a novel treatment for children who suffer from highly debilitating obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), in order to improve access to treatment and child outcomes. The active novel treatment involves 2-sessions intensive exposure therapy, coupled with anti-tuberculosis drug d-Cycloserine (DCS), recently been shown to improve outcomes when given prior to exposure therapy, through enhancing learning processes. This study involves a randomized controlled trial and examines outcomes up to 6 months follow-up.

This proposed study is embedded within an already funded multicentre randomised controlled trial. It provides an unique opportunity to study two additional novel components that has never been studied in people with bronchiectasis. The first component aims to determine if a blood marker can be used to predict a respiratory exacerbation. The second is an evaluation of the economic costs of bronchiectasis. The results of this will potentially alter clinical practice and inform public health policy.

Exclusion of disruptive students has increased significantly in recent years. Research suggests that the seeds to this problem are sown in the first few years of school and that many children referred to separate settings remain until they drop out or enter juvenile detention. This research will track 200 children through the early school years to understand how and why some students do not benefit from common behaviour management practices and what supports are needed to avert such negative trajectories.