Immunology research on alveolar lung macrophages wins ASI prize

Erika Duan is a PhD student in the Leukocyte Signalling Laboratory, headed by Associate Professor Margaret Hibbs, studying alveolar lung macrophages. Erika won a prize at the Australasian Society of Immunology (ASI) annual conference in December 2012 for her presentation on how lung macrophages vary with infection and inflammation and the challenges of translating the mouse model data to understanding the human context.

Twitter @MonashCCS

School news is now warm & buzzy.  Follow CCS news on Twitter: https://twitter.com/MonashCCS. Why bother with Twitter when you've got email? It's a simple, easy, platform independent way to send, receive and relay short messages referenced with the creator ID, with the option of attaching photos, by either computer or phone.

Department of Immunology on Facebook

The Department of Immunology is now on Facebook (FB).  The FB page features events, news, photos, updates, relevant links and so on. Please make Immunology your 'friend' to receive updates, and 'like' the page. This type of communication in particular helps the Department's outreach to intending students. See the Immunology Facebook page.

Advances in treatment for patients with thyroid cancer

Pictured, Professor Jonathan Serpell, whose speciality is the thyroid, examining a patient.  Prof Serpell and the Monash University Endocrine Surgery Unit have developed a thyroid cancer registry resulting in advances in treatment for patients with thyroid cancer. Research into monitoring of recurrent laryngeal nerve function during thyroidectomy has demonstrated several important findings including: that split nerves occur in 23% of cases;

Natural Killer cells in lung transplantation

Aislin Meehan, PhD student in Medicine, is first author on a paper published in PLOS One, investigating the effect of Natural Killer (NK) cells in lung transplantation. NK cells have the potential to be alloreactive, and cause a problem with the transplant. Their research elucidated pathways of NK cell activation, and showed that various transplant immunosuppression regimes and post transplantation events have different effects on NK cell function.

Investigating Alzheimer's disease

PhD student Judy Allen-Graham completed her thesis in 2012, titled ‘Inhibition of APP and APLP2 using siRNA to investigate protein function and Alzheimer's disease’, on functional redundancy between the Alzheimer’s protein APP and its homologue APLP2. APP, the amyloid precursor protein of Alzheimer’s disease, and its homologue APLP2 are found in a segmental distribution on the surface of neurites in cortical neurons in primary culture.

Multiple Myeloma blood cancer registry

A multiple myeloma blood cancer registry, the first of its kind in Australia and New Zealand, is being piloted through the Alfred in conjunction with Monash University. Professor Andrew Spencer, Head of the ACBD Myeloma research group investigating malignant haematology and and stem cell transplantation, said that the registry was developed after a realisation that there were no correct data on myeloma in Australia,