Professor Angela Morgan, head of the Speech & Language group at the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute and Director of Science (Pediatric / Neurodevelopmental) at Redenlab, was this week recognised by the peak medical body in Australia, the National Health and Medical Research, as the top ranked research fellow for clinical medicine and science in the country.

Angela was awarded the NHMRC Elizabeth Blackburn Investigator Grant Award from the NHMRC at an award ceremony in Canberra on the 16th of June. Professor Morgan’s work has contributed to understanding the aetiology of childhood speech disorder. This includes demonstrating that there is a genetic basis to severe speech disorders such as apraxia, and that this condition is not always inherited but can occur de novo.

Professor Morgan is co-director of a speech genomics clinic at the Royal Children’s Hospital in Melbourne, delivering diagnoses directly to families. She also consults on all pediatric trials and studies at Redenlab, working in a variety of neurodevelopmental disorders.

Named after the Australian Nobel Laureate Professor Elizabeth Blackburn, a molecular biologist who received the 2009 Nobel Prize in Physiology/Medicine, the awards are determined by a peer review process of applications to the NHMRC’s highly competitive grant schemes.

The Investigator Grant associated with Professor Morgan’s award saw her team identify new genetic causes for speech disorders, develop a digital speech tool to improve diagnostic accuracy and efficiency and implement a world-first speech disorder genomics clinic.