HEALTH minister Sussan Ley has announced $483 million in grants for health and medical research funding, including $4,796,724 for the largest clinical trial ever conducted in Australia.
The project was awarded to Professor John McNeil of Monash University who is looking at whether a daily low dose of aspirin prevents disease in healthy older Australians.
The new funds bring total investment in the research to over $10 million, with the ASPREE trial being a joint Australia/US collaboration involving 16,700 Australians aged 70 and over, along with more than 2,000 GPs.
The funding will enable the study to complete its final stage of data collection, looking at important questions about the benefits and risk of aspirin in this age group and its effects on disability-free survival.
Other projects funded look at multiple sclerosis, the association between traumatic brain injury and Alzheimer's disease, understanding the health impacts of sleep apnoea, the early disease mechanisms of motor neurone disease, and population-based genetic testing for breast and ovarian cancer.
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