Dr Sharon Huebner awarded ARC DECRA 2022

Dr Sharon Huebner has been awarded an ARC DECRA 2022 for her project First Nations community-led approaches to Australian healthcare genomics.

This project aims to develop community-led approaches that address key barriers to First Nations inclusion in Australian healthcare genomics. It will focus on working with communities to evaluate, co-design, and implement culturally appropriate engagement strategies and ethical research practices, including relationship-based consent; cultural integration of genomics; and ethical strategies for long-term management and use of biological samples and data for clinical and research purposes.

Expected outcomes of this project are policy recommendations, contributions to national ethics and protocols guidelines, and the evaluation of educational materials and digital learning tools aimed at improving genomics literacy and research practices.

This is a notable achievement given the extremely high competitiveness of the DECRA grant program. Sharon is one of only 25 Investigators from the University of Melbourne who were awarded a DECRA in this round.