Beyond the science – roadmap to success

Dr Lincon Stamp and Dr Marlene Hao, Dept Anatomy & Physiology, are young lab heads who inherited their laboratory after the retirement of Prof Heather Young in 2019; with their shared passion for the enteric nervous system they forged ahead, built a thriving and inclusive laboratory that’s punching well above its weight!

The Stamp and Hao Laboratory Team

Their grant submission ‘Treating tiny tummies: next generation cell therapies for paediatric gut disorders’ was recently anounced as successful, awarded the holy grail of research grants – a $6.5M Medical Research Future Fund (MRFF) Stem Cell Mission Grant.

This University of Melbourne led project is a brilliant example of bringing the world’s best together to tackle a global health challenge. A partnership with the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (USA), Royal Children’s Hospital/Murdoch Children's Research Institute, Monash University, Florey Institute, Flinders University, University of Newcastle, Queensland Children's Medical Research Institute, Mount Sinai Hospital (Canada), Auckland Bioengineering Institute, and patient advocacy partners at Help4HD, REACH HD and the Lloyd-Morgan family.

This is important research offering hope to our most vulnerable for a treatment and cure, it’s also an important story of resilience, perserverance, collaboration and partnerships.

We spoke to Dr Lincon Stamp to extract the roadmap to his success, to share, and inspire others whose ‘holy grail’ may just be around the corner.

Why go for this grant? 

For a number of years we have been working on developing stem cell therapies for gut disorders and building momentum towards this goal. Recent advances from our lab and collaborators around the world made us confident that we were at a precipice of something special, something important and that now was the right time to take a leap and go big.

Did you think you would get it? 

Looking back over the grant weeks and months after the intense submission process, we were both pretty chuffed with what we’d put together. We took the approach of building the best possible team, leaning on our own strengths but also bringing in world-leading stem cell biologists, clinicians and industry partners who all also had expertise in translational pipeline.

These MRFF grants are extremely competitive, so it’s always best to assume the worst and hope for the best. But we decided a few years ago that we would celebrate the grant submission itself, as these grant proposals are a lot of work and beyond submission, the result is out of our hands. So we’ve had several chances now to celebrate; submission and now success.

How hard was it to nail what they were looking for? 

We knew we had built an epic team, including some amazing consumer (patient advocate) partners. Collectively the team had really solid published and preliminary data to support our proposal. We wanted to make sure it felt achievable but also not iterative (ie: boring).

Our unique pitch was to develop a universal, off-the-shelf cell-matrix product (“hmy-iENP”) that could be used in all patients, without the need for long-term immunosuppression. So we developed a series of work packages that would get us from proof-of-concept all the way through to IND-enabling studies that could lead to first in human trials by the conclusion of the grant period; including efficacy, safety/toxicity, dose and delivery, as well as developing an optimised non-invasive way to measure successful restoration of gut motility in infants.

We wanted and needed to show that we could visualise and achieve that whole pipeline, and that we had all the pieces in place to get us there.

What does it mean for you and your team/lab now? 

Personally, this is a project that we have been working on for many years, so to have the opportunity to really try and push this stem cell therapy to the clinic and potentially make an impact of patients, including our amazing consumer partners, is a dream come true for both of us. And some reward for more than a decade of hard work and perseverance in the face of frequent rejection.

As an aside, our cell-matrix product is called hmy-iENP which stands for hydrogel myoglobin – induced enteric neural precursors, but the hmy is also a secret shoutout and acknowledgement of our former boss and mentor Prof Heather M Young; who pioneered this work and is still an amazing mentor and inspiration to us both.

Words of wisdom to others who are looking for your kind of success.  

If you think you are ready, don’t be afraid to go big.

We are still often seen are being amongst the more 'junior' lab heads and researchers, so there was a risk in us leading this grant and rather than handing it off to someone more senior. But we recognised that we were the right people to lead it, and were confident we had the right people around us, so just went all it.

Also it helps to swallow your pride a bit. We are fairly good stem cell biologists and could have leaned into our own expertise. But we decided we wanted to build the best possible team to achieve this ambitious goal of getting this stem cell therapy to the clinic. So through connections we had made and fostered, we brought in some of the leading stem cell biologists in the world to give more strength to that piece of the pie.

It goes without saying that research is a team sport, so find team mates that compliment your skills, but also make playing the game fun!!!

Congratulations Dr Lincon Stamp and Dr Marlene Hao on this wonderful achievement.

Learn more

Find an Expert Profile Dr Lincon Stamp

Find an Expert Profile Dr Marlene Hao