Biography

Angela is a clinician health service researcher, working at the University of Sydney as Professor of Clinical Epidemiology and as a Transplant Physician at Westmead Hospital. Her interests centre on health equity, in the context of multi-morbidity, specifically transplantation, cancer, infection and cardiovascular disease. She holds leadership positions with the Australia and New Zealand Society of Nephrology and the Transplantation Society of Australia and New Zealand. She is a terrible but persistent runner, likes knitting, and keeps chickens.

Short project description

Until now, it has been very hard for people to understand their likely journey on kidney transplant waitlist. I built WaitList Navigator, for kidney doctors and their patients to use together. It shows likely outcomes for waitlisted people, personalised by their age, sex, and other health information. WaitList Navigator shows what is likely to happen in the first 1-5 years of waiting, including how likely it is to get a transplant, to be temporarily or permanently suspended from the waitlist, to remaining waiting, or to die while waiting.

The WAIT-NAVI Pilot will do 3 things:

1. update the WaitList Navigator to include data for Aotearoa New Zealand
2. test the WaitList Navigator in clinical practice
3. improve the WaitList Navigator based on the feedback we get.

At the end of the WAIT-NAVI Pilot we will make WaitList Navigator freely available to a wider group of clinicians, patients, and caregivers

Biography

Professor Sandawana William Majoni is a senior nephrologist, academic clinician, and health-service leader with extensive experience in renal medicine, Indigenous health, and medical education in the Northern Territory. He is a clinician-researcher focused on improving outcomes for people with chronic kidney disease and related conditions, including diabetes, cardiovascular, liver, and infectious diseases. His research is embedded in clinical practice and emphasizes translational impact, equitable access to kidney transplantation, and strong partnerships with consumers and First Nations communities.

Professor Majoni has conceived and led multiple major research initiatives, including co-leading the INFERR clinical trial, the first NT-based trial addressing anaemia management in First Nations people with chronic kidney disease, and serving as chief or site principal investigator on studies promoting culturally safe care. He holds specialist registration with AHPRA, is a Fellow of the Royal Australasian College of Physicians and the Royal College of Physicians (London) and completed a PhD in Nephrology and Indigenous Health at Charles Darwin University. He currently serves as Director of the Top End Renal Service, Chair of the RACP Nephrology Advanced Training Committee, co-founder of the NT Health–Menzies Renal Research Group, and Adjunct Professor at Charles Darwin University and the Menzies School of Health Research.

Short project description

In this project, I will work in partnership with Indigenous (First Nations) Reference Groups (IRGs) to translate findings from the INFERR clinical trial, which I co-led, into policy, practice, and community-relevant outcomes. The INFERR trial evaluated the safety and efficacy of intravenous iron therapy for people receiving dialysis who have anaemia and elevated ferritin levels. I will also evaluate and consolidate culturally appropriate approaches to partnering with First Nations peoples in clinical trials. Recruitment for INFERR was completed on 30 June 2025, with trial participant follow up closure on 31 December 2025. Between April 2026 and March 2027, six yarning workshops will be held with IRGs to co-develop frameworks for translating trial findings into clinical guidelines and policy. An experienced researcher will concurrently assess how the trial’s ways of working can inform best practice for conducting clinical research in genuine partnership with First Nations peoples.

Biography

Dr Anna Francis is a paediatric nephrologist and clinician researcher at Queensland Children’s Hospital, Australia. She completed her PhD at the University of Sydney on “Long-Term Outcomes of Chronic Kidney Disease in Childhood and Adolescence”. She also has a Masters in Clinical Epidemiology. Dr Francis is the current President of the Australian and New Zealand Society of Paediatric Nephrology and serves on the Council of the Australian and New Zealand Society of Nephrology. In 2020, Dr Francis was accepted into the inaugural International Society of Nephrology “Emerging Leaders” programme. Dr Francis became an associate editor for Kidney International Reports in 2021 and served on the KDIGO CKD Guidelines committee in 2024. Her key research interests are the life course impact of childhood CKD and optimising outcomes in paediatric kidney transplantation.

Short project description

My prior research has shown the leading causes of death for child and youth with kidney failure are cardiovascular disease, infection and cancer. The medical course leading to death is unclear, precluding the ability to target interventions to decrease the risk of adverse outcomes.

This world-first data linkage project will integrate the comprehensive kidney failure dataset (Australian and Zealand Dialysis and Transplant registry) with federal (cancer, death) and state (hospital admissions, emergency department presentations, perinatal) data.

I aim to:

a) define current morbidity and mortality for children and youth with kidney failure

b) characterise the impact of serious cardiovascular-, cancer-, mental health- and infection- related illnesses

c) identify modifiable risk factors for poor outcomes

d) explore patient important outcomes: focus on educational outcomes

The outcomes of this research program will define the lifetime disease burden of kidney failure in young people and identify modifiable risk factors for poor outcomes.

Biography

Dr Edmund Chung is an adult nephrologist at St Vincent’s Hospital in Sydney and postdoctoral researcher at The Children’s Hospital at Westmead. He was awarded his PhD from The University of Sydney in 2025 on membranous nephropathy, which was supported by the NHMRC Postgraduate Research Scholarship. He has established the Proteinuria Evaluation and Assessment for Cure and Health (PEACH) cohort across 6 hospitals in NSW to build a biobank of patient biospecimens to facilitate patient-focused research in glomerulonephritis. The Jacquot Research Establishment Fellowship will enable Dr Chung to study autoreactive T-cells and B-cells in patients with membranous nephropathy to better understand the mechanisms driving autoimmunity, improving disease classification, disease monitoring and identifying novel therapeutic targets. Ultimately, this will enable personalised treatments for patients with membranous nephropathy.

Short project description

Membranous nephropathy is a form of autoimmune kidney disease, which occurs when the immune system inappropriately makes antibodies that attack the kidney. Current treatments broadly suppress the immune system but are incompletely effective and toxic. Membranous nephropathy remains the second-to-third most common cause of kidney failure from autoimmune kidney disease worldwide with high rates of relapse and low rates of complete response.

The protein in the kidney targeted by antibodies in membranous nephropathy is known and my research will study the autoreactive B-cells that make antibodies targeting the kidney and autoreactive T-cells that help autoreactive B-cells. This will help us better understand how immune cells cause membranous nephropathy and lead to the development of better treatments and ways of monitoring treatment response. This will pave the way for a precision medicine approach, where patients will get the right treatment at the right time, resulting in more effective and safer treatments.

Biography

Dr Lisa Paxton is a nephrologist and PhD candidate at the Monash University, Centre for Inflammatory Diseases. She completed her Bachelor of Medicine and Surgery with Honours at Monash University in 2016, followed by internship and basic physician training at The Royal Melbourne Hospital. She subsequently undertook advanced training in Nephrology across Eastern Health, The Royal Melbourne Hospital and Bendigo Health, before completing an Amyloidosis Fellowship at Eastern Health in 2024.

Dr Paxton has a strong interest in immunology, with a particular focus on autoimmune kidney disease. She is driven by a passion for understanding fundamental disease mechanisms and translating these insights into novel therapeutic strategies. She is currently undertaking a PhD at Monash University, investigating the use of gene therapy to target neutrophil extracellular traps in autoimmune kidney disease, with the aim of contributing to more precise and effective treatments for patients.

Short project description

ANCA-Vasculitis and C3 Glomerulopathy (C3G) are kidney diseases caused by immune system dysfunction, leading to kidney damage. Current treatments use broad immune suppression, which has serious side effects and limited success. Neutrophil extracellular traps, a process by which neutrophils extrude their intracellular material to cause damage, are implicated in the disease process for both ANCA vasculitis and C3G DNase I is a critical enzyme for degrading the contents released by the neutrophils. Administration of exogenous DNase I can therapeutically treat ANCA associated vasculitis in animal models- however it has a short half life and requires twice daily treatment intravenously a cumbersome form of treatment for patients. A new gene therapy to deliver the genetic material for endogenous DNaseI production will overcome this short half life and is predicted to reduce kidney damage by breaking down harmful inflammatory cells, offering targeted treatment while preserving host defence.