Murdoch Children’s Research Institute welcomes Quad Fellows to Melbourne

Quad Fellows, who are undertaking a first-of-its-kind scholarship program designed to build ties among the next generation of scientists and technologists from Australia, Japan, India and the US, visited the Melbourne Biomedical Precinct today as part of the Quad Fellowship Summit.  

Professor Melissa Little AC, Chief Scientific Officer of Murdoch Children’s Research Institute and CEO of the reNEW Novo Nordisk Foundation Center for Stem Cell Medicine, along with representatives from Schmidt Futures, who operate and administer the initiative, welcomed the inaugural Quad Fellows for a tour of the world-leading precinct to learn more about advances being made in the medical field.

The Quad Fellows convened in Melbourne to learn about the power and promise of interdisciplinary and cross-cultural collaboration as well as the importance and impact of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) around the world.

Following the morning’s welcome at the Murdoch Children’s, four senior representatives from Murdoch Children’s, Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre, WEHI and the Doherty Institute fielded questions from the Fellows about their institutions’ contributions to global medical research and how the four organisations work closely as part of an integrated precinct.

Quad Fellowship Summit audience.

Later, the Fellows toured Murdoch Children’s and the three other world-leading medical research institutes taking part in the day. The tours focused on disease and immunology research, synthetic biology, stem cell and genomic medicine and leveraging public-private partnerships to translate academic research into practice.

A key highlight of the Murdoch Children’s tours was hearing about how GenV, Australia’s biggest parent-and-child birth cohort, would improve families’ health and wellbeing for generations to come.

Professor Little AC said, “The Quad Fellowship Summit was a fantastic opportunity to bring together some of our region’s brightest young minds and showcase the life-changing and far-reaching influence of our biomedical precinct.

“We were particularly proud to share the outcomes of our cooperation as a biomedical precinct during the COVID-19 pandemic. This was a great example of how interdisciplinary cross-collaboration drives health outcomes with real life impacts in highlighting the importance of working together to improve opportunities for people across the globe.”

The Quad Fellowship’s first cohort of STEM graduate students was announced in December 2022 by the Australian, Indian, Japanese and US governments. The scholarship builds connections between the next generation of STEM leaders, while empowering them to spur interdisciplinary scientific and technological innovation.

The inaugural Summit, held from June 6-11, will cover a variety of strategic STEM topics identified by the four Quad countries, including critical and emerging technologies, climate resilience, global health and pandemic preparedness, sustainable infrastructure and cybersecurity.

The Quad Fellowship is supported by a group of corporate and civil society partners who have played key roles fostering innovation and technological advancement. The partners include Accenture, Boeing, Blackstone, Google, Mastercard, the Patrick J. McGovern Foundation and Western Digital.