As the Wal-yan Respiratory Research Centre turns two, the Centre celebrates its achievements and thanks everyone involved in the work of the Centre.
In Australia, around one million children live with serious respiratory diseases. More than 110,000 of these children live in WA.
The Wal-yan Respiratory Research Centre – a powerhouse partnership between The Kids Research Institute Australia, Perth Children’s Hospital Foundation and Perth Children’s Hospital – has a vision to ensure that all children have healthy lungs for life.
Since the Wal-yan Centre was officially launched on 11 August 2020, the Centre’s researchers have continued to work towards this vision by looking at ways to prevent and cure respiratory illness in children.
The Centre has become a global epicentre for paediatric respiratory research and is informing clinical practice and driving a new research agenda for childhood lung health.
Some of the Centre’s research highlights over the past two years include:
- advances in understanding how we can prevent the development of asthma by training the immune system
- research around the safety of e-cigarettes and biodiesel
- the development of a clinical program to implement phage therapy for bacterial infections that are resistant to antibiotics
- advancements in our regional wet cough work, which is looking at ways to help improve the management of chronic wet cough in Aboriginal children
- a greater understanding of preterm lung disease, and how our early life affects lung health throughout our life,
- and outcomes that will change the clinical care for people who have cystic fibrosis.
This work is only made possible thanks to the Centre’s incredible researchers, the people who take part in the Centre’s studies, their families, and the Centre’s supporters.
On behalf of the one million children who live with serious respiratory conditions in Australia alone, thank you to everyone involved in the work of the Wal-yan Centre.