Snow Fellowships aim high at creating big medical breakthroughs

Canberra’s Snow family has broken the $100m barrier in funding medical research, with a long-term goal of creating big breakthroughs.

University of Sydney’s LIning Ju aims to create a machine to detect dangerous blood clots from a pin prick of blood.

Canberra’s Snow family has moved into the ranks of Australia’s top philanthropists investing more than $100m into medical research since 2020.

Its latest two $8m fellowships – aimed at stimulating long-term research in challenging, worthwhile fields – have gone to research teams at the University of Sydney and the Burnet Institute.

Snow Medical Research Foundation chairman Tom Snow said the fellowships were intended to tackle big goals and “move away from the culture of incrementalism” in research.

The fellowships, which give $1m a year for eight years to a research team, are designed to support and nurture emerging talent and create future research leaders.

One of the two 2023 fellowships has been awarded to Lining Ju in the University of Sydney’s school of biomedical engineering. He heads the Mechanobiology and Biomechanics Laboratory and the grant will support his team’s aim to create a device that can analyse blood from a finger prick to predict whether the patient is in danger of blood clots and a subsequent heart attack.

Tom Snow, chair of the Snow Medical Research Foundation

“The motivation for my research is personal. My father had a heart attack when he was just 54 years old, inspiring my personal quest to build a simple test to notify people at risk of developing a deadly blood clot,” Associate Professor Ju said.

The other 2023 fellowship goes to Michelle Boyle of the Burnet Institute, whose research group is developing new vaccines and therapeutics for malaria. Her team has already learnt much about antibodies that protect from malaria and CD4 T cells that spark protective responses against the disease.

“I am incredibly grateful for the opportunity to now focus completely on my research and to develop my team’s capacity with unprecedented support for eight years, free from the constant cycle of grant writing and stress of unstable funding opportunities,” Dr Boyle said.

Mr Snow, whose family owns Canberra airport, said the Snow fellowships were “deliberately people focused”.

“We are looking for the research leaders of the next generation,” he said.

Mr Snow said the foundation also wanted to encourage cross-disciplinary teams in medical research. “We want more engineers working with biomedical research, we want more people who are leaders in AI working with medical researchers,” he said.

Mr Snow said fellowship winners were also assisted to develop business skills – doing an entrepreneurial course and getting guidance from his father, Terry Snow, on how to do business.

Snow Medical has now awarded 11 $8m fellowships since 2020, in addition to other research grants that take the foundation’s total medical research giving to over $100m.

Mr Snow said the foundation aimed to readmit the University of Melbourne to the next round of Snow Fellowship applications after banning the institution in March last year for lack of diversity when six white men, and no others, were awarded honorary doctorates.

“We are working with them on their honorary doctorate program and we hope they will have some promising results in the near term. Consequently, our aim is to be able to include them in the upcoming Snow Fellowship round,” he said.

In response, the University of Melbourne said it was “wholly committed to supporting and advancing the progression of all women across the university” pointing to the growing number of women in senior leadership roles.

A spokesperson said the university was not working with the Snow Foundation in relation to honorary doctorates, which were awarded by the university council and governed by a policy.

“The university welcomed the opportunity to assist the Snow Medical Research Foundation with the development of its Gender Equality Benchmark Report and participate in the pilot earlier in the year,” they said.