Photo of the week: ACBD symposium

Nov 2015 Australian Centre for Blood Diseases symposium. Names given in left to right sequence
Front row: Dr Huyen Tran, Dr Elizabeth Gardiner, Professor Harshal Nandurkar
2nd row: A/Prof David Curtis, Dr Mark Guthridge, Dr Jake Shortt, Dr Anissa Jabbour, Dr Stephen Opat
3rd row: Dr Max Topp, A/Prof Jody Haigh, Dr Sue Morgan, Prof Rob Medcalf, Prof Stephen Jane, Prof Christina Mitchell
4th row: Dr Stephen Ting, Dr Sanjeev Chunilal, A/Prof Ross Dickins, Dr Rob Andrews, Dr Warwick Nesbitt, Dr Justin Hamilton, Dr Christoph Hagemeyer

See more:

• 6 Nov 2015 ACBD symposium photo gallery
• ACBD research
• Central Clinical School published photo collections
• For CCS staff, see CCS Intranet photo index

Forthcoming CCS events: Seminars, public events, general notices

Last year's D.S.Rosengarten winner

Central Clinical School has regular seminar series and graduate research presentations. All event notices are maintained on the CCS Events calendar. CCS staff & students can see details of both public and local events (including professional development courses, trade fairs and Graduate Research Student calendars) and deadlines, at the CCS Intranet's Announcements page.

Various departments have their own calendars. See CCS seminar index: www.med.monash.edu.au/cecs/events/seminars.html

What's on for this coming week: 5-11 Dec 2015

Sat	►	5-Dec	8:00	Surgery D.S. Rosengarten Prize presentations
Mon	►	7-Dec	12:30	Psychiatry Professorial Grand Round
Tue	►	8-Dec	11:00	PhD Pre-Submission Review Seminar : Ms Amani Alrehaili
	►		11:00	NHMRC Research Grants presentation
	►		14:00	CCS Head of School Annual Address Enquiries: Catherine.wong@monash.edu
Thu	►	10-Dec	16:00	CCS Christmas party Enquiries: Catherine.wong@monash.edu

Why are we not routinely screening for anal cancer?

By Dr Jodie Abramovitch

HIV positive men who have sex with men are at higher risk of developing anal cancer – a significant health issue. To date, little is known about the professional views of HIV clinicians on anal cancer screening.

Professor Christopher Fairley

To address this, a detailed survey of 20 HIV physicians was conducted by Dr Jason Ong, a PhD student of Professor Christopher Fairley who is based at the Melbourne Sexual Health Centre, and collaborators from the Central Clinical School, Melbourne University and the Kirby Institute (NSW).

Their research revealed that anal cancer screening within HIV positive men who have sex with men was considered a priority by clinicians. However, it was noted that there is currently no validated method for the effective screening of anal cancer - there is no evidence that detection of precursor lesions reduces mortality.

Designing a vaccine for ovarian cancer

By Dr Jodie Abramovitch

Ovarian cancer (OC) is the fifth most common cause of cancer-related death among women. Detection of OC is difficult with diagnosis often occurring at an advanced stage. Many women who have undergone conventional treatment, involving surgery and chemotherapy, have a poor prognosis for the 5 years post-treatment.

Past and present members of the Vaccine and Infectious Diseases
Laboratory. (L-R) Sue Xiang, Ying Ying Kong, Rohimah
Mohamud, Qian Gao, Kirsty Wilson, Mutsa Madondo,
Chindu Govindaraj, Magda Plebanski

Dr Sue Xiang and other members of the Vaccine and Infectious Diseases laboratory under Professor Magdalena Plebanski in the Department of Immunology and Pathology are working on developing an effective peptide-based vaccine for OC. Peptide vaccines can induce highly specific immune responses which limits adverse side effects. In two recent studies, they characterised peptides from the human Sp17 protein which is expressed abnormally in many OC cases.

Novel method of perfusion gives longer life to donor hearts

Prof Frank Rosenfeldt & Ms Chris Egan

An Alfred-Monash group of surgery researchers have previously showed that donation after circulatory death (DCD) canine hearts can be resuscitated if perfused with warm blood. However, clinical application of this technique is complex and difficult. The group has developed a simplified system of cold crystalloid perfusion and compared it with standard cold storage for DCD heart preservation.

They found that continuous cold crystalloid perfusion in a canine model of DCD facilitates aerobic metabolism and resuscitates the DCD heart, and provides functional and metabolic recovery superior to cold storage. Prof Frank Rosenfeldt said, "We believe that this shows promise for improved clinical preservation of DCD and marginal donor hearts."

Reference: Choong JW, Ou R, Lim YW, Rosenfeldt FL. Cold crystalloid perfusion provides cardiac preservation superior to cold storage for donation after circulatory death. Transplantation. 2015 Nov 13. [Epub ahead of print]

PhD in Clinical Neuroscience: Top Up Scholarship

We are seeking a high performing new PhD student to work in the Brain Stimulation group at the Monash Alfred Psychiatry Research Centre (MAPrc). The successful student will be supervised by Professor Paul Fitzgerald, a world leading brain stimulation expert. An APA scholarship (or equivalent) is required to apply, with a top-up scholarship to be awarded to the successful applicant ($8,500pa).

The project will utilise cutting edge neurotechnologies in order to investigate the mechanisms of therapeutic brain stimulation in psychiatric illness. This is a unique opportunity to join Australia’s leading research group spanning both basic and therapeutic brain stimulation research.

To apply send your CV and half-page statement on your research interests to Paul.Fitzgerald@monash.edu

For more information contact:

• Professor Paul Fitzgerald
• Paul.Fitzgerald@monash.edu
• www.maprc.org.au/Psychiatric-Neurotechnology

CCS Photos on Google+

Google plus has 'upgraded' its photo hosting & it's more complicated than previously. If you now visit our CCS G+ profile, you will no longer see the Photos tab (unless you switch to the 'Classic' view). I've begun a Collection of our photos. However, there is no indexing or tagging, so the photo albums only appear in the order they are posted.

Links:

• Central Clinical School collection of published photo galleries
• Previous G+ view Photos tab
• For CCS staff & students, to see indexed photo albums, go to CCS Intranet photo index

Chennai flooding information crowd sourced for real time data

Chennai's crowd sourced map of flooded streets. A live map has been launched to help people in the city. Whoever will navigate through the map, will be able to see a clear picture of the current situation and will be able to avoid waterlogged areas and roads. This map of Chennai is a crowdfunded effort to keep people updated about the waterlogged areas in the city.

Read more at: http://www.oneindia.com/india/chennai-floods-follow-this-live-map-to-avoid-waterlogged-areas-1944872.html