Dr Jacob Dye is a survivor of sepsis and a Senior Research Fellow at The George Institute. After going into septic shock in 2023, and spending weeks in the ICU, Jacob began to research the psychological outcomes of sepsis.

66-year-old with 46 years' experience working at the Florey Neuroscience Institute. Single father of 23 and 21 year-old daughters and live in Melbourne outer east. Survived severe septic shock after being placed on ECMO 14 years ago. Complete recovery and I am still working full time. Member of several Sepsis support groups and a passionate supporter of medical research.

A Sepsis survivor with Post Sepsis Syndrome. Lynda has been a consumer advocate in the public and private health sectors for 20 years, and involved in research for 10 years. She was appointed by the Health Minister to the Aged Care Council of Elders in December 2023.

Roxanne is a member of the Sepsis Australia Consumer Partner and Advocacy program, which she joined after surviving sepsis multiple times since 2021. She is also a master’s candidate at La Trobe University, exploring human-animal-nature relationships through the lens of positive psychology, and volunteer wildlife rehabilitator.

Simon is a Professor of Critical Care in Sydney, a founding member and is a past-Chair of the Australian and New Zealand Intensive Care Society (ANZICS) Clinical Trials Group, past chair of the International Sepsis Forum, and past Vice President of the Global Sepsis Alliance. He is the Director of Sepsis Australia and the Asia Pacific Sepsis Alliance.

Kimberley Haines is a mid-career researcher and is an Associate Professor in the Department of Critical Care, School of Medicine, at The University of Melbourne. A/Prof Haines is also the Physiotherapy Research Lead and Senior Critical Care Physiotherapist at Western Health, Melbourne, Victoria. Kimberley is currently undertaking her NHMRC Investigator Grant, to continue her post-doctoral research in ICU recovery.

A/Prof Haines is an emerging national and international leader in the field of critical care survivorship and health services research – with particular expertise in consumer engagement, co-design, and qualitative methods in vulnerable cohorts.

Associate Professor Naomi Hammond is an intensive care nurse researcher. She works part-time as the Critical Care and Sepsis Australia Program Head at The George Institute for Global Health and part-time as the Executive Director, Research for the Northern Sydney Local Health District.

Naomi holds several other appointments including NHMRC Emerging Leader Fellow; Conjoint Associate Professor at the Faculty of Medicine, University of New South Wales; Treasurer of the Asia Pacific Sepsis Alliance, and Chair of the Australian Critical Care Nurses Research Advisory Panel.

Professor Yugeesh Lankadeva is a NHMRC Emerging Leader Fellow and a National Heart Foundation Future-Leader Fellow and leads the Critical Care Research Department at the Florey Institute of Neuroscience and Mental Health. His research aims to understand the pathophysiology of sepsis. Armed with this knowledge, he hopes to develop novel diagnostics and therapeutics to improve patient-centered health outcomes.

Dr Stephen Macdonald is an Emergency Physician based in Western Australia. He has a research interest in acute sepsis care which was the subject of his PhD awarded in 2018. He remains actively engaged in sepsis research including co-leading a major multi centre randomised trial of resuscitation strategies in septic shock. He has been involved in a number of sepsis advocacy and policy areas over the past decade. In 2019 he was awarded a Churchill Fellowship to study best practice approaches to sepsis care in the USA, Canada and United Kingdom.

Melissa McDonnell is a proud Kamilaroi woman, is a dedicated researcher in the Guunu-maana (Heal) Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health Program at The George Institute for Global Health. With over 30 years of experience in Aboriginal health, Melissa has been a relentless advocate for equity and transformative change for Aboriginal people and communities. She brings invaluable lived experience of the systemic disparities affecting Aboriginal people. These experiences have shaped her passionate commitment to driving meaningful, long-term improvements in health outcomes for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities through innovative, sustainable, and culturally grounded research.

Alex is the program manager of NCCR at the Australian and New Zealand Intensive Care Research Centre at Monash University

Alex holds a PhD from the school of medicine at Adelaide University. He has been a Research and Project Manager of critical care research projects and programs with studies published in high impact journals. Alex also has a keen interest in translating research in to practice and has worked in evidence synthesis with National Clinical Evidence Taskforce

Manoj is a senior intensive care physician (St. George Hospital, Sydney) and a senior lecturer (The George Institute for Global Health, UNSW).

Manoj’s research interest is in large-scale clinical trials that provide robust and reliable patient-centred evidence on thermoregulation and circulatory management in patients with acute serious illness requiring invasive organ support. He has completed a PhD and NHMRC Early Career fellowship on Thermoregulation for Acute Critical illness, including sepsis and acute brain injury.

Dr Paul Secombe is a senior intensivist based at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Adelaide, South Australia. He spent more than a decade working in the intensive care unit of the Alice Springs Hospital, a unit which sees a disproportionate amount of sepsis. He is a PhD candidate within the the School of Public Health and Preventive Medicine at Monash University, and is awaiting the outcome of his thesis examination.

He is also the clinical lead for the ANZICS CORE Adult Patient Database, and a member of the ANZICS National Outlier Management Committee.

Dr Kelly Thompson is a National Health and Medical Research Council of Australia, Emerging Leadership Fellow at The George Institute for Global Health. Concurrently she is Director of Research Operations at Nepean Blue Mountains Local Health District.

She holds a Doctor of Philosophy and Master of Public Health from the School of Population Health, Faculty of Medicine, UNSW, Sydney. She is a Registered Nurse, with clinical experience in intensive care.

Kelly’s primary research interest is in health and gender equity in the clinical area of infection and sepsis. She uses population level data to understand and improve equity in health outcomes for survivors of sepsis and critical illness.

Andrew is Head of Research at The Alfred ICU, Melbourne VIC, and Deputy Director, Australian and New Zealand Intensive Care Research Centre - Monash University.

His research interests include sepsis, traumatic brain injury, neurocritical care, and extra-corporeal membrane oxygenation. He is passionate about supporting trainees/early-career clinician-scientists, and increasing diversity in clinical research. Andrew is Vice-Chair of the Australian and New Zealand Intensive Care Society (ANZICS) - Clinical Trials Group (CTG), and is a proud product of Aotearoa New Zealand.

Steve is an intensive care physician and infectious diseases physician at The Alfred Hospital in Melbourne. He has been the director of The Alfred Intensive Care unit since 2017, a 68-bed quaternary ICU specialising in trauma, advanced cardiac support, ECMO and burns. Steve has also worked for the World Health Organisation in the health emergencies and pandemic preparedness program. He was the chair of the ANZICS COVID-19 guideline committee and is the current Clinical Director of the Australian Living Evidence Collaboration including the COVID-19 National Clinical Evidence Taskforce. He has been the lead author of the Australian Therapeutic Guidelines Sepsis chapter for the past 9 years and is also an author on surviving sepsis. Also a board member of the global sepsis alliance.

Li has been working as an intensive care doctor for 8 years in China and 11 years in Australia before he became a General practitioner at Hawthorn East Medical & Aesthetic Clinic. He has special interest in acute renal failure in sepsis, and septic shock, and published more than forty papers in this area.

Sepsis is a life-threatening condition that arises when the body’s response to infection injures its own tissues. Any type of infection —bacterial, viral or fungal — can lead to sepsis, with potentially devastating results.

If not recognised and treated promptly sepsis can result in avoidable death and disability. Sepsis can affect previously healthy people, and has profound impacts on individuals, their families, and the healthcare system. Many sepsis survivors endure substantial morbidity, including amputations, irreversible functional disabilities, persistent symptomatic organ dysfunction, and psychological trauma, often leading to frequent re-hospitalisations.

The aim of PSPs is to bring patients, carers and clinicians together to jointly identify priorities for research. The James Lind Alliance's current portfolio of PSPs is on the JLA website. JLA PSPs are characterised by following an evidence-based method set out in the JLA Guidebook and are facilitated by one of a small team of approved JLA Advisers.

PSPs' objectives are to:

• bring patients, carers and clinicians together to identify uncertainties or unanswered questions for specific health issues

• agree by consensus a prioritised 'Top 10' list of those uncertainties for research

• publicise the methods and results of the PSP

• draw the results to the attention of research funders, independently of the JLA.

Advocates of, and individuals from, the following groups are eligible to take part in a PSP:

• people with experience of the health area in question

• carers and families of those affected

• health and social care professionals working with patients and carers in the health area in question.

The James Lind Alliance (JLA) is a non-profit making initiative which is funded by the UK’s National Institute of Health Research (NIHR). It provides a “tried-and-tested”, fair and rigorous process to help patients, carers and clinicians work together to agree which are the most important treatment uncertainties affecting their particular interest (in this case sepsis), in order to influence the prioritisation of future research in that area.

• People who have had sepsis 

• Carers of people who have had sepsis (families, partners, friends etc.) 

• Health care professionals involved in the care/treatment of patients with sepsis

Please note: Survey respondents must be over 18 .

Survey 2 responses will be analysed to identify the most commonly selected questions. These questions will form the basis of a virtual workshop involving a diverse group of people from across Australia, including individuals who have experienced sepsis, carers of those affected by sepsis, and healthcare professionals with experience in sepsis care.

During the workshop, participants will discuss these key questions in depth and work collaboratively to agree on the final ‘Top 10’ research priorities.

The results will be publicly available on the Shaping Sepsis Care and James Lind Alliance websites and used to advocate for future research funding in the areas of highest priority.

There will be two surveys.

Survey 1 offers sepsis patients, carers and healthcare professionals the chance to participate in a survey aimed at gathering their questions and concerns about sepsis. This input will help us identify the most common unanswered research questions. Their questions can help us find important areas to research in order to improve the healthcare and wellbeing of Australians affected by Sepsis.

Once we collect the questions, we will review them against existing published research to determine which have already been addressed.

From here we conduct Survey 2 to help prioritise the summary questions.

Ultimately, we will publish a final list of the Top 10 unanswered research questions, encouraging researchers and funding bodies to focus on the most urgent and relevant needs of those affected by Sepsis.

This consultation is funded by the National Critical Care Research Collaboration through the Australian Government Medical Research Future Fund (MRFF).

Please email the project team at contact@nccr.au if you have any further questions.