Congratulations to Justin Cole, Daniel Merlo and Lin Zhang on their graduate research degree completions!

L-R: Daniel Merlo, Justin Cole and Lin Zhang have recently
completed their graduate research degrees.

Congratulations to Justin Cole, Daniel Merlo and Lin Zhang on completing respectively their graduate research degrees! The awards were conferred on 11 June for Daniel Merlo, 29 September for Lin Zhang and 6 October for Justin Cole.

Participants sought: Schizophrenia treatments using virtual reality, brain stimulation and social cognition

Participants sought for study investigating whether virtual reality
training combined with non-invasive brain stimulation can improve
people's ability to understand social situations.

Transforming treatments for schizophrenia: Virtual reality, brain stimulation and social cognition

The Epworth Centre for Innovation in Mental Health is seeking volunteers between the ages of 18 and 55 with a diagnosis of schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder OR no history of mental health conditions to help us investigate whether combining virtual reality training with a gentle form of non-invasive brain stimulation can improve the ability for people to understand social situations.

Participants sought: Effects of odour on the larynx in healthy individuals

Posted on behalf of Dr Asger Sverrild (Fellow in Asthma, Allergy and Clinical Immunology, Alfred Hospital) via A/Prof Menno van Zelm (Monash Immunology)

We are running a small study (Alfred Ethics 461/21) between now and Christmas 2021 looking at the effects of odour on the larynx in healthy individuals. This will help interpret abnormalities in our patients with vocal cord dysfunction - a clinically important question.

"Is research for me?" Growing Pains podcast interviewing Ingrid Scheffer and Jackie French

Sarah Barnard hosts the Growing Pains podcast where she talks to fellow students and medical professionals about the challenges they face navigating their personal and professional lives as future medics.

In this 4 October episode, "Is research for me?" Sarah shares an interview she did with Professors Ingrid Scheffer and Jackie French this month about life as a clinician-scientist.

Funding boost for imaging agent research in disease diagnostics

Positron emission CT scan of Human Brain.
Utthapon Wiratepsupon/Shutterstock.com

The Commonwealth Government’s Global Innovation Linkages Program has invested $1 million to establish a Research & Development manufacturing hub for the production and commercialisation of new [18F]-PET imaging agents, as part of a collaboration being led by Monash University, including researchers from Central Clinical School's Department of Neuroscience. Program partner Cyclotek (Aust) Pty Ltd has contributed $600,000 to this project.

See Monash story

2021 Dean's Awards for Central Clinical School staff

This year's Dean's Award winners in Central Clinical School. L-R: Professor Merlin Thomas, Dr Jess Borger, Prof Robyn Slattery, Ms Sharmila Ramesh

Amy Searle wins Faculty Indigenous Award for Doctoral Thesis Excellence

Dr Amy Searle has been awarded the Faculty's Indigenous
Award for Doctoral Thesis Excellence. See her video

Congratulations to Dr Amy Searle, who completed her PhD last year, on being awarded the Faculty Indigenous Award for Doctoral Thesis Excellence 2020! See her video.

Amy's PhD thesis is titled, "Innovative precision medicine approaches for thrombo-inflammatory driven cardiovascular diseases". She was supervised by A/Prof Xiaowei Wang and Prof Karlheinz Peter (Baker Institute). Her degree was conferred on 19 August 2020.