NUTRACEUTICAL AND PHARMACOLOGICAL INTERVENTION IN NEUROLOGICAL DISORDERS
Dr Virginie Lam, Research Fellow
Curtin Medical Research Institute, Curtin University &
Perron Institute for Neurological and Translational Science
Perth, Western Australia
RESEARCHER PROFILE
Filmed in Perth, Australia | August 2025
Dr Virginie Lam is a neuroscientist and cerebrovascular biologist with over 15 years of research experience, including more than seven years post-PhD. She co-leads the Neurovascular and Metabolic Diseases Laboratory at the Curtin Medical Research Institute and holds an affiliate appointment at the Perron Institute for Neurological and Translational Science. Her research focuses on the interface between neurovascular health, cognitive function, and therapeutic translation in neurodegenerative disorders.
Dr Lam is the scientific project manager and co-investigator of a Medical Research Future Fund (MRFF)-supported Phase II randomised controlled trial in Alzheimer’s disease. She has led the expansion of this study into a multi-site trial involving centres across Western Australia, Tasmania, South Australia, Queensland, and New South Wales. She also established the trial’s first international collaboration in New Zealand, supporting a trans-Tasman research network across academic, hospital, and clinical trial partners.
Dr Lam has secured over AUD$6 million in competitive research funding as chief investigator, including grants from the MRFF, NHMRC, Raine Foundation, WA Future Health Research and Innovation Fund, and the Bryant Stokes Neurological Research Fund. Her expertise spans clinical trial coordination, human research ethics, neuroimaging, cognitive assessment, and the translation of preclinical findings into early-phase interventions. She has authored more than 70 peer-reviewed publications and currently leads a multidisciplinary team of scientists, clinicians, and research personnel.
She serves on the National Imaging Facility (WA Node) Advisory Board, Curtin University’s human and animal research ethics committee, and multiple NHMRC peer review panels. Dr Lam is actively engaged in research governance and capacity building, having founded and co-chaired several early-to-mid-career researcher (EMCR) committees and national working groups. Her research program continues to inform the development of targeted therapeutic strategies for neurovascular and cognitive disorders through rigorous translational science and cross-sector collaboration.
Source: Supplied
https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8463-645X
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Novel forms of brain stimulation & psychedelic assisted psychotherapy
Professor Paul Fitzgerald is the Head of the School of Medicine and Psychology at the Australian National University. He is an academic psychiatrist with a MBBS degree, Masters of Psychological Medicine and research PhD. He has conducted an extensive range of experimental studies and clinical trials, focused on the development of novel treatment options for patients with mental health conditions such as depression, schizophrenia, obsessive compulsive disorder, PTSD, autism and Alzheimer’s disease.
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Supportive care for people living with or beyond cancer treatment
Dr Hannah Wardill is a Hospital Research Foundation Fellow and lead of the Supportive Oncology Research Group (SORG), in the School of Biomedicine, University of Adelaide and Precision Cancer Medicine Theme, South Australian Health and Medical Research Institute (SAHMRI). She is an Executive Board Member of the Multinational Association for Supportive Care in Cancer / International Society for Oral Oncology (MASCC/ISOO) and Chair of both MASCC/ISOO Patient Partnership Committee & the Palliative Care Clinical Studies Collaborative (PaCCSC) Cancer Symptom Trials (Gut Dysfunction Node; supported by Cancer Australia).
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Hormone receptor positive breast cancer and therapy resistance
Prof Elgene Lim is a medical oncologist at St Vincent’s Hospital and Head of the Connie Johnson Breast Cancer Research Lab at the Garvan Institute. Following his PhD at the Walter & Eliza Hall Institute where he identified the aberrant cells in carriers of the BRCA1 mutant gene, a hereditary breast cancer syndrome as the culprit cells giving rise to breast cancer, he furthered his research and clinical training at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Harvard Medical School. He was awarded the National Breast Cancer Foundation Practitioner Fellowship in 2014 and returned from Boston to Australia. In 2017, he was awarded the inaugural National Breast Cancer Foundation Endowed Chair, and subsequently appointed the Principal Cancer Theme Lead at UNSW.
