University of Sydney researchers awarded REDI Industry Fellowships

Dr Hilary Byrne, Associate Professor Zoe McKeough and Dr Peyman Obeidy have been awarded the REDI (Researcher Exchange and Development within Industry) Fellowships, with the opportunity to work on high priority medical research projects with companies in the medical technology, biotechnology and pharmaceuticals sector.

The REDI Fellowship program is part of MTPConnect’s REDI initiative funded by the Australian Government’s Medical Research Future Fund (MRFF). It will bring researchers, clinicians and MTP professionals together for up to twelve months to work on priority medical research projects.

The REDI Fellowship program provides up to $250,000 per Fellow to Australian and/or multinational medtech and pharma companies creating industry placements that support Fellows with entrepreneurism experiences and exposure to strengthen Australia’s successful translation and commercialisation of medical research.

Interim Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Research), Kathy Belov AO congratulated the researchers on their success.

“I congratulate Hilary, Zoe and Peyman on their appointment as Industry Fellows as part of the Research Exchange and Development with Industry program. Their contributions to high priority medical programs in imaging diagnosis and surveillance, pulmonary rehabilitation technology and medical data handling will boost Australia’s health medical research efforts and build important links between the University and industry. I look forward to seeing the outcome of their work.”

Dr Hilary Byrne, a Program Manager and Research Fellow at the ACRF Image X Institute in the Faculty of Medicine and Health, will undertake a 12-month project with 4DMedical, the technology innovator delivering breakthrough four-dimensional lung imaging capability, transforming diagnosis and surveillance.

Dr Byrne will focus on resolving clear clinical needs spanning conditions such as COPD, lung cancer, cystic fibrosis and long-COVID, and by expediting regulatory approvals and commissioning of prototype scanning platforms enabling better treatments for patients.

Associate Professor Zoe McKeough, senior researcher in the Respiratory and Cardiac Rehabilitation and Management (ResCaRM) Research Team in the Faculty of Medicine and Health, will undertake a 12-month project with Perx Health, a digital care company building programs for daily condition management, to gain hands-on skills using AI for coronary disease risk stratification together with iCoreLab company, and experience in designing and building digital health technology for healthcare.

Associate Professor McKeough will build a commercially ready mobile pulmonary rehabilitation program integrated with the Perx digital health platform.

Dr Peyman Obeidy, a clinical image analyst in Imaging and Phenotyping (IaPL) at the Faculty of Medicine and Health, will undertake a 12-month project with Siemens Healthcare, a leading medtech company, to gain skills in specification, validation, and regulatory requirements and market positioning digital products. Together with Siemens and iCoreLab, a company that specialises in medical data handling.

Dr Obeidy will use A.I. powered algorithms to identify Biomarkers for early coronary artery disease risk identification and stratification.