NEONATAL RESPIRATORY TRIALS IN SICK & PRETERM NEWBORN INFANTS
Professor Brett J. Manley, Consultant Neonatologist
Mercy Hospital For Women, Melbourne & Professor of Neonatal Medicine, Department of Obstetrics, Gynaecology and Newborn Health, University of Melbourne, Australia
RESEARCHER PROFILE
Filmed in Melbourne, Australia | August 2025
Professor Brett J. Manley is a Consultant Neonatologist at the Mercy Hospital for Women in Melbourne, Australia, and a Professor of Neonatology in the Department of Obstetrics, Gynaecology and Newborn Health at The University of Melbourne. His research is supported by a fellowship from the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC), Australia.
He divides his work time between being a clinician in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU), and a clinical researcher. He is passionate about caring for sick and preterm newborn infants and contributing to the evidence base for their care, to improve their shorter- and longer-term outcomes.
Prof Manley leads and collaborates on large national and international randomised clinical trials in neonatology. He previously collaborated on 4 randomised trials of nasal high-flow as non-invasive respiratory support for preterm and term infants, all of which were published in N Engl J Med. Recently he led the PLUSS trial of intratracheal budesonide for extremely preterm infants, that recruited in 21 NICUs across 4 countries, the results of which were published in JAMA. PLUSS was awarded the Australian Clinical Trials Alliance Trial of the Year in 2025. Another passion of his is mentoring and supervising early career researchers to undertake their own clinical trials.
Source: Supplied
https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0212-7956
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Next Generation Condom Contraception, Dr David Shepherd
Dr David Shepherd is a Lead Production Engineer and Materials Specialist at Eudaemon Technologies. His journey began at the University of Wollongong, where he pursued advanced studies and eventually obtained a PhD under the guidance of a distinguished professor. His research initially focused on actuating materials and artificial muscles, particularly centred around hydrogel materials. These early explorations have seamlessly evolved into his current focus on utilising hydrogels in the realm of sexual reproductive health, with a specific emphasis on developing innovative hydrogel condoms.
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Stem cell therapies for enteric neuropathies
Dr Stamp is a Group Leader in the Department of Anatomy and Physiology at the University of Melbourne, Australia. Dr Stamp’s PhD research (with Prof Martin Pera, Monash University) focused on the derivation of hepatopancreatic progenitors from human embryonic stem cells. He then joined the lab of Dr Don Newgreen at the Murdoch Childrens Research Institute where he began working on development of the enteric nervous system (ENS), before joining Prof Heather Young’s lab at the University of Melbourne, where he focused on developing a stem cell therapy to treat gut motility disorders such as the paediatric enteric neuropathy Hirschprung disease.
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Relationship between mental illness and mental wellbeing
Since 2015, Dr Matthew Iasiello has been working on the development and dissemination of mental wellbeing interventions across the Australian community at the South Australian Health and Medical Research Institute (SAHMRI). His PhD research was designed specifically to strengthen the translational work conducted by SAHMRI, and to solve problems that represented gaps in the literature that were arising when delivering mental wellbeing interventions into the community. The impact and relevance of Dr Iasiello’s work has been demonstrated with invited presentations at international academic conferences, and multiple media stories with significant online engagements.
