Translational Research PhD and Graduate Certificate taking enrolments

Monash clinical schools have a catchment of one million patients.
Image: Vendo

Studying Translational Research at Monash gives you access to the University’s extensive and well-established network of clinics, hospitals, centres and institutes.

Monash University is offering a new PhD and Graduate Certificate in Translational Research. These courses offer scientists and clinicians an opportunity to develop skills in the conversion of basic research findings to clinical practice, commercial applications and therapeutic products in multidisciplinary environments.

Congratulations to Prabhu Mathiyalagan on the award of his PhD!

Image: @prabhu_gene

Congratulations to Mr Prabhu Mathiyalagan, who has been awarded the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. Prabhu’s thesis, "Role of histone modifications and chromatin interacting non-coding RNAs in regulating cardiac gene transcription", was accepted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree by the Graduate Research Steering Committee on Tuesday 23 December 2014. Prabhu was supervised by Professor Assam El-Osta (BakerIDI) and he continues as a Postdoc in Prof El-Osta's lab. His interests include Epigenetics, Biotechnology, Heart disease and Diabetes.

It’s all about the STEM: Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics

Call to invest in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) education: "Only 18% of Australia’s workforce has STEM qualifications, but 65% of our economic growth is due to technical advances, underpinned by STEM skills. After decades of relying on natural resources, it’s now becoming apparent that Australia’s economic comfort over the last four decades masked a decline in innovation. A report by consultancy firm PricewaterhouseCoopers has warned that Australia could fall out of the top 20 economies unless we remove our reliance on resources and invest in STEM." Link: It’s all about the STEM

Driver discovered in aggressive form of T-cell acute lymphoblastic leukaemia

Zinc finger E-box binding homeobox 2 protein
Source: Wikipedia ZEB2

The disease Early Thymic Progenitor-cell acute lymphoblastic leukaemia (ETP-ALL) is aggressive, has poor survival rates and doesn't respond well to therapies currently available. Its exact causes have to date not been well understood.

A research group at Monash's Australian Centre for Blood Diseases (ACBD) has identified that increased expression in one transcription factor acts as a driver in the development of ETP-ALL. Dr. Steven Goossens and Associate Professor Jody J. Haigh, who is the leader of the Mammalian Functional Genetics group in the ACBD, have been working on the Zinc finger E-box-binding homeobox 2 (ZEB2) protein.

Welcome to Dr Anissa Jabbour, ACBD

Welcome to Dr Anissa Jabbour starting this year in the Australian Centre for Blood Diseases. Dr Jabbour completed her PhD characterising caspase inhibitors in 2005 with Dr Christine Hawkins (Melbourne University, Australia). Since then, she has undertaken three post-doctoral positions.

Micronutrient of benefit in heart failure patients

Professor Rosenfeldt with a patient

Optimal therapy of heart failure (HF) is the goal every medical practitioner is aiming for, and routes to it are diverse. Professor Frank Rosenfeldt of the Department of Surgery and a group of collaborators have investigated the effect of a micronutrient called Coenzyme Q10 with a group of 420 clinical trial HF participants. It was a randomised, controlled, multicentre trial. Their finding was that the intervention group using Coenzyme Q10 as adjunctive treatment did better than the placebo group.
Reference: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25282031

Welcome to our new students starting at Central Clinical School

Central Clinical School welcomes 29 new Honours students, 19 BMedSc(Hons) students and our new PhD students in 2015. 18 of our new Honours students have a BSc and 12 come from the BBiomedSc stream. We also have a record enrolment of nearly 900 undergraduate students from science and medicine undergraduate degrees in Immunology and medical biology subjects.