Wal-yan Respiratory Research Centre.
The Foundation on the frontline
“Perth Children’s Hospital Foundation is proud to be part of a powerhouse partnership with Telethon Kids Institute and Perth Children’s Hospital to deliver what is arguably one of the most important research centres in children’s health today. As a co-funder of the Wal-yan Warlang-up Respiratory Research Centre we are confident that such a significant focus on childhood respiratory disease will not only have a profound impact on WA sick kids now but will continue to benefit kids with respiratory disease worldwide for future generations to come.”
Carrick Robinson, CEO, Perth Children’s Hospital Foundation
The Wal-yan Respiratory Research Centre will be a global epicentre for paediatric respiratory research, informing clinical practice and driving a new research agenda for childhood lung health.
Bringing together clinicians, scientists and the community, as well as the brightest minds from around the globe, the Centre aims to prevent and cure respiratory illness in children and ensure that all children have healthy lungs for life.
A powerhouse partnership between the Telethon Kids Institute, Perth Children’s Hospital Foundation and Perth Children’s Hospital, we are excited to collaborate with the Telethon Kids Institute in a mulit-million dollar fundraising commitment over the nextcoming years to provide this much needed centre in WA.
About the Respiratory Research Centre
We all take breathing for granted, yet the community and healthcare costs of respiratory illness in children are enormous. In Australia, around 1 million children live with serious respiratory diseases, with asthma alone costing the country $28 billion each year. More than 110,000 of these children are in WA.
These illnesses are the leading cause of hospital admissions for children under four, accounting for 30% of all childhood hospitalisations.
The Centre is the first of its kind at Perth Children’s Hospital and reflects cutting edge partnership between clinicians, scientists and the community, as well as the brightest minds from around the globe to drive a new research agenda for childhood lung health.
The Centre itself is based at the Telethon Kids Institute, co-located with the Perth Children’s Hospital on the QEII Campus in Nedlands, and has more than 140 laboratory scientists, epidemiologists, clinical researchers, computational biologists, bioinformaticians, PhD students and research assistants working in partnership with a core leadership team.
In an example of true collaborative, multi-disciplinary research, leading scientists and their teams at the Centre will work in partnership with clinicians to investigate key components of how different immune pathways interact in lung and airway tissue to induce asthma. The Centre’s scientists are spearheading the development of therapies that would function like an asthma vaccine to both train the immune system and protect the lining of the airways to prevent the development of childhood asthma.
The Wal-yan Respiratory Research Centre aims to:
- Improve the lives of all children with breathing difficulties by finding ways to protect, repair, and regenerate young lungs;
- Reduce the enormous healthcare costs associated with the treatment of asthma, cystic fibrosis, and other chronic respiratory diseases in children in Australia;
- Reduce the significant Indigenous health gap in relation to respiratory disease;
- Provide evidence-based respiratory health information to the community and advocate for issues relating to respiratory health in children and young people;
- Attract and retain the world’s best respiratory research clinicians and develop the next- generation of respiratory research luminaries;
- To work towards a world where all children have healthy lungs for life.
