Recent CCS publications: Week ending 13 May 2016

Monash Alfred Psychiatry research centre's Director, Professor
Jayashri Kulkarni and a colleague

Recent publications for CCS affiliated authors:

Galletly C, Castle D, Dark F, Humberstone V, Jablensky A, Killackey E, Kulkarni J, McGorry P, Nielssen O, Tran N. Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists clinical practice guidelines for the management of schizophrenia and related disorders. Aust N Z J Psychiatry. 2016 May; 50:410-72.
doi: 10.1177/0004867416641195.

Registration open for Bachelor of Medical Science (Honours) student information night 29 June at CCS

See CCS's BMedSc(Hons) 2017 projects

For medical students thinking about doing the Bachelor of Medical Science (Honours) year, the options are increasingly flexible. Central Clinical School (CCS) specialises in clinical and translational research, with seamless connections between the Alfred, our next-door teaching hospital and our research facilities spread across the entire Alfred Medical Research and Education Precinct. Find out more on 29 June (CCS). To register for the night, click here: Registration link

Congratulations to Pam Tong Zhu on completing her PhD!

Congratulations to Pam Tong Zhu on completing her PhD! Pam's thesis is titled "The role of renin angiotensin system in retinal inflammation", and was ratified by the Graduate Research Steering Committee on Tuesday 10 May 2016. Pam's supervisors were Professor Jennifer Wilkinson-Berka (Department of Immunology and Pathology) and Dr Alex Agrotis.

Congratulations to Drs Caroline Gurvich and Kiymet Bozaoglu on their platform grant success

Dr Caroline Gurvich, Research Fellow/
Clinical Neuropsychologist at MAPrc

Congratulations to Drs Caroline Gurvich (CCS) and Kiymet Bozaoglu (Baker IDI) who have been awarded Faculty Platform Access Grant (PAG) funding in 2016 for their project titled, "Too stressed to think clearly? How microarray gene expression profiling can inform us about stress and cognition". The funding will enable Drs Gurvich and Bozaoglu (who also received an EMCR AMREP seed funding grant for the same project) to access the Monash bioinformatics platform for bioinformatics analyses to understand which gene pathways moderate the stress-cognition relationship in their research on gene expression and stress. 

Funding Opportunity: Georgina Sweet Awards for Women in Quantitative Biomedical Science

On behalf of Professor Leann Tilley, ARC Georgina Sweet Laureate Fellow and Professor of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology in the Bio21 Molecular Science and Biotechnology Institute, The University of Melbourne, we are pleased to advise that two new awards have been established this year for female researchers in quantitative biomedical science:

• Georgina Sweet Award for Women in Quantitative Biomedical Science: Up to two awards of $25,000 will be made each year to female researchers who demonstrate excellence in the area of quantitative biomedical science.  Closing date for applications for this year’s awards is 31 July 2016.

• Georgina Sweet Travel Support for a Female Keynote Speaker in Quantitative Biomedical Science: Up to three awards of $3,000 are available each year to support attendance of a female keynote speaker at an Australian quantitative biomedical science conference.  Applications are open at any time until awards have been allocated for the year.  

Both awards have been created as part of Professor Tilley’s Laureate Fellowship commitment to foster, support and promote female researchers in quantitative biomedical sciences.  Applications are open to researchers within Australia.

Application guidelines and forms for both awards are available at http://mdhs.unimelb.edu.au/research/georgina-sweet-awards/_nocache .

For queries about the awards, please contact Ms Shannon Kenny (shannon.kenny@unimelb.edu.au).

Funding Opportunities: Department of Defense (DoD) Peer Reviewed Medical Research Programs

Image: Department of Defence

The Fiscal Year 2016 (FY16) Defense Appropriations Act provides $278.7 million to the Department of Defense Peer Reviewed Medical Research Program (PRMRP).  The vision of the PRMRP is to improve the health and well-being of all military Service members, Veterans, and beneficiaries. The PRMRP challenges the scientific and clinical communities to address one of the FY16 congressionally directed topic areas with original ideas that foster new directions in basic science and translational research; novel product development leading to improved therapeutic or diagnostic tools; synergistic, multidisciplinary research programs; or clinical trials that address an immediate clinical need.

Perspective: Helen Razer on Belle Gibson, the media and other snake oil salesmen

Helen Razer

Helen Razer in The Daily Review, 9 May 2016: "To paraphrase something Winston Churchill once paraphrased: science is the worst way to explain the physical universe, except for every other way we’ve ever tried." Helen Razer describes how the media love simple heroes and villains, and sacrifice scientific understanding in the process. Belle Gibson, disgraced lifestyle entrepreneur, is case-in-point here with being first hero, then villain. The media fail to grasp at all times the scientific process to evaluate her claims and their discrediting.
See full story: dailyreview.com.au/razer-belle-gibson/41987/ (10 min read)