Chronic unexplained gut diseases will be examined in a $3 million research grant awarded to University of Newcastle Professor Nick Talley.
The federal government announced the funding on Friday, as part of $60 million in medical research projects.
Professor Talley said the grant would be "great for the uni, research and the community".
"We'll be working to solve gut health problems. This will go a long way to making a real change," he said.
Professor Talley's Centre of Research Excellence in Digestive Health will use the money to seek causes of gut disorders and new therapies.
"We're working on ways of altering gut bacteria, so we can improve gut health and perhaps other things like brain function," he said.
"We have some clinical trials we'll be running and experimental work to progress that."
The National Health and Medical Research Council grant, which will run for five years, will back the Newcastle team's use of "dietary approaches" for gut disorders.
"Diet changes the gut microbes. Getting the diet right can make a huge difference," Professor Talley said.
"We'll also be looking at some over the counter medications.
"One is called simethicone. It's a drug used for reflux. It forms a barrier at the top part of the stomach.
"And in fact, it does more than that. It seems to positively impact the bugs in the small intestine.
"We're looking at things that are cheap, safe and may have real effectiveness."
The centre will also run a clinical trial with "a prebiotic milk sugar that comes from breast milk".
"We'll test whether it changes brain function in a positive way," he said.
"If that's the case, then we have exciting work to do."
It's estimated that more than a third of Australians are affected by disorders of gut-brain interaction.
These include irritable bowel syndrome, functional dyspepsia and reflux hypersensitivity.
Professor Talley said connections between the digestive and nervous systems had emerged as a "key factor driving chronic and relapsing symptoms".
The research team will build on previous discoveries that found an imbalance in the small intestine drives these diseases.
Dietary factors that produce an immune response can cause complications with these illnesses.
