Monash researcher leads drive to better manage global research ‘deluge’

A/Prof Julian Elliott speaking at the Commonwealth
Health Minister's award function in June 2017

by Anne Crawford

For some 30 years, international literature about medical and scientific research topics worldwide has been critically reviewed, summarised and distilled for all to use in what are called ‘systematic reviews’. But with an exponential growth in research, about 7% of these reviews are out-of-date on the day they’re published as the field has moved on, while 25% are out-of-date within two years.

Head of Clinical Research in the Department of Infectious Diseases, Associate Professor Julian Elliott, is behind a push for a better model to make sense of this “data deluge”. He and his team are trialing what he has termed ‘living systematic reviews’ (LSR), enlisting methods including online platforms, artificial intelligence and ‘citizen science’ to improve efficiency in the production of the reviews.

Congratulations to CCS 2017 NHMRC grant recipients!

Congratulations to all of our National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) project grant recipients in Central Clinical School (CCS)! In addition to the CCS based recipients listed below, we would also like to congratulate Dr Nadine Andrew who is in the process of transferring her grants to CCS from the School of Clinical Sciences. Nadine is based at Peninsula Health with Velandai Srikanth’s group. We also farewell Professor Magdalena Plebanski, who is taking on a senior role at RMIT of Enabling Capability Platform Director, Health and Biomedical Sciences.

Prof Paul Myles receives ASA Excellence in Research Award!

Professor Paul Myles, Head of 
Department, Anaesthesia and
Perioperative Medicine

Congratulations to Prof Paul Myles, who has been awarded the 2017 Excellence in Research Award by the American Society of Anesthiologists (ASA)!

The ASA says, "[Paul Myles] has to be considered among the very best physician–researchers our specialty has ever seen", for not only his capacity to build worldwide teams of researchers and create large trial networks involving thousands of patients, but to focus on meaningful patient-centred outcomes. He's interested in people's feedback to improve their experience.

Link: monitor.pubs.asahq.org/article.aspx?articleid=2654713&resultClick=3

Congratulations to Geraldine Ooi on D.S.Rosengarten Surgical Research Prize!

Dr Geraldine Ooi with Mrs Candice Rosengarten,
widow of David Rosengarten and donor of the prize

Congratulations to Dr Geraldine Ooi, this year's winner  of the D.S. Rosengarten Surgical Research Prize!

Dr Ooi presented on: Lipidomic analysis of nonalcoholic fatty liver disease in morbid obesity: Pathologic alterations in liver lipid profile and parallel serum changes with progressive disease.

Dr Ooi is a General Surgical trainee undertaking a PhD in the Central Clinical School's Department of Surgery in Monash University and with the Bariatric Surgical Unit, looking at non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) in obesity.  She is supported by an NHMRC scholarship and is supervised by Professor Wendy Brown.

See more about the event: www.monash.edu/medicine/ccs/surgery-alfred/prizes/rosengarten and photo gallery

Profs Mark Cooper and Paul Zimmet receive IDF awards

Professor Mark Cooper presented one of the prestigious International Diabetes Federation’s Award lectures in Abu Dhabi on “The science of diabetes complications” which recognised his and his team’s major discoveries in this area. The lecture was titled “Pathogenesis of micro and macrovascular complications: are there common pathways for both?"

Prof Paul Zimmet received a 'Lifetime Achievement Award' (right) for his huge contribution to diabetes research.

See more about the IDF Congress: www.idf.org/our-activities/congress.html

Congratulations to Gavin Horrigan on hitting the targets!

Gavin Horrigan, festooned
with winner's sashes

Gavin Horrigan ("Straight Shooter") enjoyed amazing success at the recent Ararat Clay Target Club Christmas shoot as can be seen from the attached photo. He won three prizes:

• Club Champion (shooter breaking most targets for the year out of the total number thrown) – yellow sash and wooden trophy
• Off The Fence Champion (a competition where people shoot 25m behind the trap house on the back of the layout rather than shooting 15m behind the trap which is the normal mark – this was a shoot off between all of the shooters who had won an Off The Fence event in 2017) – purple sash
• Champion of Champions (a shoot-off between anyone who had been Overall Winner of a competition in 2017) – tartan sash

Gavin Horrigan is Central Clinical School's Manager in addition to being a talented shooter.

Healthy blood donors aged 60+ (miniscule amount - 9 ml) wanted for research study on sepsis

Help paint the picture!
Healthy blood donors wanted
to give 9 ml blood

Call out for healthy blood donors to provide a small amount of blood (9ml) as part of the project: A pilot study towards the development of point-of-care testing to diagnose sepsis. The project investigates established and novel biomarkers involved with sepsis.

One of the aims of our project is to measure the levels of sepsis biomarkers in healthy donors in order to have a baseline of comparison to Sepsis-positive patients. Since most of the Sepsis patients, who are currently being recruited in the Alfred Intensive Care Unit, are between 60-70 years of age, we are interested in healthy volunteers in the same age group for an 'apples for apples' comparison.