Professor Jane Pillow is a clinical academic neonatologist at the University of Western Australia. She pursued undergraduate medical studies at the University of Queensland. A one-year interruption to her medical education to undertake research at the Royal Children’s Hospital in Melbourne as part of a Bachelor of Medical Science underpinned a life-long enthusiasm for medical research. After a clinical internship in Townsville, she moved to Victoria to undertake postgraduate training in Paediatrics, subsequently specialising further in Neonatology. She subsequently pursued PhD studies at the Telethon Institute for Child Health Research in Perth (1997-2000), and undertook an NHMRC Neil Hamilton Fairley postdoctoral fellowship at The Institute of Child Health in London (2001-3) before returning to Perth in 2004. She has subsequently held multiple other prestigious Fellowships including a Viertel Senior Medical Research Fellowship, and Career Development, Senior Research and more recently Leadership Fellowships from the NHMRC.
Professor Pillow is acknowledged internationally as an expert in the area of neonatal respiratory physiology and mechanical ventilation. She has obtained over $35 million AUD in research funding, including 10 NHMRC project and ideas grants since 2007 (7 as CIA), an NHMRC Centre of Research Excellence (CIA/Co-Director), an NHMRC Development Grant (CIA), a CRC-P, a Wellcome Trust grant, and 4 grants from the NIH (3 as Australian CI).

Professor Pillow is Theme Lead for Early Environment Theme and core member of the Science Leadership Committee at Telethon Kids Institute. She is also Director of the UWA Preclinical Intensive Care Research Unit. Past roles have included Associate Dean (Research) for the Faculty of Science at UWA (2020), Member of School of Human Sciences Executive Committee (2017-2022), CIA and Co-Director of an NHMRC Centre of Research Excellence for Improving the Immediate and Longer-Term Outcomes of Preterm Infants (2013-20). Prof Pillow is an experienced NHMRC project grants and fellowship applications reviewer (since 1999), previously serving on multiple NHMRC grant review panels and the Assigners Academy. She has ongoing peer review responsibilities to local and international grant funding and scientific publication bodies. In addition to her academic responsibilities, Prof Pillow is an Honorary Research Fellow at the Telethon Kids Institute. 

Prof Pillow has extensive commitments to undergraduate, postgraduate and clinical education through involvement in University course delivery and small group theoretical and practical workshops throughout Australia, Asia and Europe.  She is a member of the Executive of the Australian and New Zealand Neonatal Network, and chaired the ANZNN working group on Chronic Lung Disease 2017-2021. 

Prof Pillow is focused on leading and developing transdisciplinary research, within and beyond current research focus areas. Key to this focus is identifying novel interventions that can have a major impact on improving lifelong outcomes for newborn infants. Future research will continue to have a major focus on treatments that improve respiratory outcomes in preterm infants.  However, Prof Pillow's research is increasingly developing along more integrative pathways, as treatments that focus on improved immediate and longer-term outcomes across multiple body systems are pursued through development and evaluation of interventions that will also have positive impacts on other organ systems via common injury and inflammatory pathways.  A major focus for current preclinical and clinical research activity is promotion of early development of circadian rhythm and opportunities to correct circadian rhythm disruption resulting from adverse exposures such as infection. This focus acknowledges the central role of disrupted circadian rhythms in the pathophysiology of many chronic morbidities including susceptibility to infection, metabolic disorders, hypertension, poor mental health, and cancer to name but a few.  We hypothesise that early establishment/normalisation of these rhythms will improve neurodevelopmental outcomes after premature birth.  

Over $35M Career Funding

Current NHMRC Funding includes:

GNT1181434

Innate Defence Regulator Peptide for Protecting the Preterm Infant from Postnatal Sepsis.  Pillow JJ, Lee A, De Jong E, Christophersen C, Gummer J. 

GNT1196188

Reducing global mortality and severity of disease in newborn infants through innovation and
holistic interventions. Pillow JJ.

GNT2001391

Cognitive Improvement through early Restoration of circadian rhythms in very preterm Infants via Environmental Modification: The CIRCA DIEM Study. Pillow JJ, Hunt R, Anderson P, Mark P, Spittle A, Whitehouse A, Marsh J, Elliott C, Badawi N.  

GNT 2031405

DelivAssure: A novel fetal lactate sensor to improve detection of intrapartum fetal hypoxia. Pillow J, Hubble L, Morris J. Wang J, Shapley J, Chaplin T, Fox D, Kaushik A, Challenor M. 

Other Current Funding:

CRC-P

DelivAssure - a novel monitoring device to detect hypoxia during childbirth. Challenor M (Vital Trace Pty Ltd), Kaushik A, …. Pillow J….

Meat & LIvestock Australia

Design, establishment and benefits of edible shelter to improve lamb survival and whole-farm profitability. Blache D, Maloney S, Pillow J, Walker D, Mugera A. Design, 

MRFF

Lungs for life: Using wearable oximetry and a virtual ward to improve outcomes of infants with Bronchopulmonary Dysplasia. Oei JL, Chang A,Tracy M, Pillow JJ, Fitzgerald D, McEwan A, Khanna S, Halliday R, Pussell K, Hartz D, Popat H, Lee E, Simpson S, Wilson A.

FINGERPRINT: FINdinG Early markers of Respiratory disease for survivors of PReterm birth which IdeNtify Treatable traits.2023/GNT2031548. Simpson S, Wilson A, Le Cao K-A, Tiddens H, Garratt L, Evans D, Nicol M, Stanojevic S, McDonnell A, Reinke S, Smith E, Foong R, Bates A, Ramakrishnan S, Pillow J. 

WELLCOME TRUST

Understanding the effect of increased heat on the physiology of pregnancy and fetal outcomes. Wrywoll et al.

STAN PERRON CHARITABLE TRUST

Neuroprotection and neuroimaging: reducing the burden of neonatal encephalopathy. Edwards A, Meloni B, Pillow J, Dalimore L, Rosenow T, Kyng K, Knuckey N. 

Innate Defence Regulator Peptides to Reduce Sepsis, and Improve Developmental Outcomes in Preterm Infants

ARG-007 to reduce severity of birth asphyxia

A novel continuous fetal lactate sensor to reduce severity of birth asphyxia and reduce incidence of unnecessary caesarean section.

Restoring Circadian Rhythm to Improve Neurodevelopment and Reduce Risk of Metabolic Syndrome in Later Life

Chronotherapy: Optimising time of day administration of antenatal steroid therapy to improve long-term outcomes for preterm infants

Biozone - Transdisciplinary Biomedical/Biological Research and Training at UWA
https://www.biozone.uwa.edu.au/

Prof Pillow works closely with a number of medical device companies to improve equipment and strategies used in the delivery of respiratory care to newborn infants and to prevent adverse outcomes associated with oxygen deprivation during labour and birth.

Professor Pillow’s research interests evolve from her determination to improve the respiratory outcomes of preterm infants through development and enhanced understanding of novel approaches to mechanical ventilation and postnatal care. She is Director of the Preclinical Intensive Care Research Unit (PICRU) – a unique (inter)national facility for extended duration care of preterm lambs as a model of lung disease associated with preterm birth. PICRU studies evaluate the long-term systemic outcomes associated with controversial or promising new neonatal therapies. Prof Pillow’s clinical research includes clinical trials of novel respiratory treatments such as nebulised surfactant, as well as restoration of circadian rhythm to premature infants. A major focus of current clinical research is the CIRCA DIEM trial, which aims to improve long-term neurodevelopmental outcomes of premature infants by encouraging earlier development of circadian rhythms. She is a committed transdisciplinarian and welcomes collaboration involvement to identify innovative solutions to unmet needs that will improve outcomes for children.