Seventeen multidisciplinary research teams will each receive $5 million in funding from the Australian government to find solutions to major questions in human health that cannot be answered by individual investigators.

The Minister for Health and Aged Care, Greg Hunt, has announced the award of $85 million for 17 projects through the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) Synergy Grant scheme.

Each Synergy Grant team receives $5 million over 5 years, with funding commencing in 2022. The Synergy Grant scheme was introduced in 2019 and is designed to support highly collaborative teams of diverse researchers to work together to address major problems in any area of human health and medical research, from discovery to translation. Notably, over 50 per cent of the Synergy Grants awarded in this round are led by women.

Some of the projects this year include- Creating new drugs to fight the emerging viruses and antibiotic-resistant superbugs; Integrating multiple biological measurements from patients with severe forms of epilepsy; Tackling the social determinants that underlie rheumatic heart disease, etc.