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A new era for global immunology

Imagine a world where an immune health check was as routine as a heart check.

Where immune diseases were not silent and devastating for millions of people.

We have.

But we’re not just imagining.

The Snow Centre for Immune Health has an innovative and ambitious goal to lead a new era of world-changing medical discoveries for immune health.

“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.”
Tom Snow
Chair, Snow Medical Research Foundation

A major health challenge

Diseases caused or worsened by a dysfunctional immune system pose one of the greatest health challenges in society, affecting millions of people worldwide.

These conditions range from rare, life-changing genetic immune deficiencies to debilitating chronic disorders such as lupus, multiple sclerosis, rheumatoid arthritis, allergies and asthma.

There is no cure for any of these conditions.

Treatments are limited. Blanket approaches are common.

Collectively these disorders are astonishingly common and are increasing in frequency globally.

The big questions in immunology research

Despite decades of progress, many of the fundamental questions in immunology remain unanswered. Solving these mysteries could transform human health.

At the Snow Centre, we’re tackling some of the biggest challenges in immunology.

  • We want to transform the understanding of how immune cells make decisions.
  • We’re searching for safe, effective ways to ‘wind down’ or switch off harmful immune responses to avoid and suppress autoimmune conditions.  
  • We’re working to manipulate and reverse the processes that drive allergies
  • We’re aiming to identify an individual’s risks of developing immune-related disorders and correcting the root causes before disease develops. 

The Immune System Explained – video courtesy of Kutsugatz

Autoimmune diseases are a leading cause of death in women under 65.
Over 300 million people worldwide have asthma, including 1 in 9 Australians.
In Australia, allergy and immune disease are among the fastest growing chronic conditions.

Revolutionising immune health

In partnership with the Snow Medical Research Foundation (Snow Medical) we have established the Snow Centre for Immune Health to tackle these major global health challenges.

The centre, co-led by WEHI and the Royal Melbourne Hospital, brings together leading Australian and international researchers with a shared mission: to transform how we understand, diagnose and treat immune-related diseases.

Our goal is to accelerate discoveries that reveal the underlying features and markers of immune health, allowing us to detect disease earlier and deliver more targeted, effective treatments.

The centre is funded by a landmark commitment of up to $100 million over 10 years – one of the largest and longest philanthropic medical research partnerships in Australian history. 

A world first approach to immune health

The Snow Centre for Immune Health has a global mission to improve the lives of people with immune diseases, using a new approach to immune health.

The immune system is famously complex; however, we have found that the processes that determine immune cell decisions can be distilled into several key components.

Computational modelling of how these components integrate to drive immune responses provides a new framework for understanding immune function and dysfunction. By understanding how molecular networks and genetic variation impact these immune cell decisions.

The centre will look at immune health and the immune system from a whole-of-system, whole-of-person perspective.

The research program will decipher what factors give us good or poor immune health. The capacity to model these processes offers the promise of predictive immunology, to accelerate personalised diagnosis and treatment for people living with immune diseases and dysfunction.

We believe this unique approach has the potential to transform the way we think about our immune health.

Our vision for the future

Solving the immune mystery

To discover the essential genomic processes that govern immune cell decision-making to shed new light on the factors that give us good or poor immune health.

Predictive immunology

To use this knowledge to accurately diagnose and predict a person’s risk of developing an immune disease.

Proactive and preventative care

To use predictive immunology to drive a more proactive and preventative care to reduce the burden of immune-related disease.

Personalised treatment

To deliver personalised, effective treatments tailored to each person’s immune profile.

A scientist is photographed working with a pipette
Vanessa Bryant, Phil Hodgkin and Charlotte Slade photographed in a laboratory

Doing science in a new way

The centre will integrate advanced technologies and multidisciplinary teams of leading experts – including immunologists, clinicians, mathematicians, engineers, geneticists, computational and cell biologists from across the globe – to foster synergy and unprecedented diversity in thinking on the new science of immune health.

By creating new theories of immune health, testing and refining them with large new longitudinal datasets and sharing this knowledge we aim to break new ground with a collaborative ‘big-picture’ perspective.

It will translate discoveries made in the lab to benefits for patients at unparalleled scale and speed.

“A project that will truly change the way we treat disease,” Tom Snow, Chair, Snow Medical Research Foundation
Brighter together
Investing in excellence

Related news 

A vision of the future for immune health
28 May 2024
Snow Centre for Immune Health to revolutionise global immunology research
21 November 2023
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We invite you to have a conversation with us about how together we can maximise our impact and support the transformational Snow Centre for Immune Health.

Contact

Deborah Carr
Head of Philanthropy
M: 0400 724 853
E: carr.d@wehi.edu.au

 

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