US funding support to open the doors on neonatal traumatic brain injury research

Dr Sabrina Salberg, a post-doctoral research fellow in the Department of Neuroscience, has received a Young Investigator research grant (US$35,000) from the Society for Pediatric Pathology (USA) – one of the first for Monash University and an Australian university. The award was announced at the society’s spring meeting held on 22 March in Baltimore.

Dr Salberg completed her PhD degree only last year, with her thesis entitled, “Pain in the developing brain: Early life adversities that affect the development of chronic pain in adolescence.” Her project found that early life neglect and high fat-high sugar diet consumption increased chronic pain sensitivity following traumatic brain injury (TBI) and surgery in a sex-dependent manner. Dr Salberg said, “Interestingly, females demonstrated more pain behaviourally, while males demonstrated more significant effects at the molecular level.”

GEDI committee statement on World Autism Awareness Day

April 2 is World Autism Awareness Day. Autism is a developmental condition that affects people throughout their lives and can be characterised by difficulties in social interaction, communication, restricted and repetitive interests and behaviours, and sensory sensitivities. It is estimated that 1 in 70 people and 1 in 100 children are on the autism spectrum (WHO ‘Key facts about Autism’). World Autism Awareness Day is a day of observance that has been sanctioned by the UN “to highlight the need to improve the quality of life of those with autism, so that they can lead full and meaningful lives as an integral part of society.”

Within the Central Clinical School, the GEDI committee acknowledges that people living with Autism or Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) are all unique. Some people with Autism may not require any additional support, but for others who do need support, their needs are not identical. We also recognise that many in the school provide care or support to people (including children) with Autism, and appreciate that there are additional appointments or tasks that you attend to in order to provide that care or support.

PhD student receives Gustav Nossal Postgraduate Scholarship Award

Congratulations to Dr Douglas Tjandra for receiving the Gustav Nossal Postgraduate Scholarship Award from the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC).

Dr Tjandra is undertaking a PhD with Prof Alex Boussioutas and Dr Rita Busuttil in the Gastroenterology Department at the Central Clinical School and Alfred Hospital. His PhD has a dual focus on a condition called gastric intestinal metaplasia (a precursor lesion to gastric cancer) and genetic conditions which predispose to both gastric and colorectal cancers.

He will look at the clinical, molecular, genetic and immunological features which affect the level of risk, and how our healthcare systems can be optimised in screening and follow-up to improve outcomes for patients and reduce associated healthcare burdens.

Student awarded MS Australia scholarship to research a new therapeutic approach to brain repair

PhD student Danica Nheu has received a $105,000 scholarship from MS Australia to complete a three-year research project aimed at slowing disease progression and enabling recovery from disability. 

Multiple sclerosis (MS) is one of the most common neurological diseases, affecting up to 2.8 million people globally. This chronic disease is caused when the body’s own immune system mistakenly attacks the central nervous system. These attacks cause active MS lesions, and the nerve cells themselves can also be damaged, leading to life-long disability.

Dr Steven Petratos’ research team has shown that a specific protein is present within active MS lesions when nerve fibres are damaged. Danica’s project aims to propose a new method to block the protein present in the diseased brain during MS, to halt disease progression and provide recovery from disability.

Central Clinical School awarded $7M through MRFF for medical research

The Australian Government has awarded more than $53M through the Medical Research Future Fund (MRFF) to 21 Monash researchers for research into cardiovascular disease, respiratory disease, dementia, cancer, primary health care, nutrition and more.

Four of these projects, totalling over $7M, were awarded to Central Clinical School researchers.

Professor Terence O’Brien received $3M for a world-first trial of a drug treatment for poorly controlled epilepsy. This new drug is the first potentially curative drug for people with epilepsy who are resistant to control with current anti-seizure drugs.

Associate Professor Natasha Smallwood received $2M for a primary care technology-enabled intervention to improve symptom self-management for people with chronic respiratory illness.

New staff appointments

We are pleased to announce that Dr Michelle Zajac has been appointed as the new School Manager of the Central Clinical School (CCS) and A/Prof Andrew Stewardson has been appointed as the new Director and Associate Professor of Infection Prevention and Hospital Epidemiology at Alfred Health (a joint appointment between Alfred Health and CCS).

Michelle is well known to the School, having done an outstanding job as our Senior Research Manager at CCS since 2019, and Senior Research and Operations Manager at CCS since 2021. During this time, Michelle has successfully executed a broad range of management responsibilities while also overseeing a considerable growth in the research income of the School and the Monash-Alfred Clinical Trials Program.

A/Prof Stewardson has been with the Alfred and Monash University since 2017 and has made stellar contributions across clinical service, quality improvement and research in the area of Infection Prevention and Control. He has emerged as one of the leading national experts in Infection Prevention and Control, including being the immediate past Chair of the Healthcare Infection Control Special Interest Group of the Australasian Society of Infectious Diseases, and member of the national Infection Control Expert Group (ICEG) and the Infection Prevention and Control Panel for the National COVID-19 Clinical Evidence Taskforce.

Graduate Research Opportunities - Internships Information Session

We encourage all graduate research students and supervisors to attend this session presented by our Associate Dean, Associate Professor Priscilla Johanesan to hear more about the graduate research opportunities regarding internships.

This will be held on 28 March (Tuesday) at Lecture Theatre, Level 5, Alfred Centre from 1:15pm-2pm.