Photo of the Week: Win for head trauma patient care

Prof Jayashri Kulkarni looking comfortable on the EVestG chair, now about to be funded further by a CRC-P.
L-R: Dr Daniel Heibert (NDPL), Dr Jerome Maller (MAPrc), Dr Caroline Gurvich (MAPrc), Mr Charles Hider (NDPL), Prof Jayashri Kulkarni (Director, MAPrc), Dr Roger Edwards (NDPL), Adjunct Prof Brian Lithgow (MAPrc) - Inventor and lead researcher, Mr Anthony de Castella (MAPrc)

Congratulations to Professor Jayashri Kulkarni for the $2.2 million grant the Monash Alfred Psychiatry research centre (MAPrc) was successful in obtaining for investment in its EVestG™ chair project, "Tech-enabled Care Pathways for Head Trauma".

Forthcoming CCS events: 13-17 Feb 2017

Dragana Dragoljevic at the 2015
CCS postgraduate symposium

Central Clinical School has regular seminar series and postgraduate presentations. Event notices are posted 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 13-17 Feb 2017

Tue	14/02/2017	►	11:00	PhD Confirmation of candidature - Ms Wing Yu Man
		►	13:30	PhD Mid-candidature review - Ms Dragana Dragoljevic
Wed	15/02/2017	►	11:30	PhD Mid-candidature review - Mr Kristopher Nilsen
		►	12:00	History of plastic surgery at the Alfred
Thu	16/02/2017	►	11:30	Cutting Edge Immunology seminar: Jennifer Boer
		►	12:00	Alfred Grand Round: Andrew Taylor

CCS Publications up to 10 Feb 2017

L-R: Prof Karin Jandeleit-Dahm, Dr Stephen Gray and
Dr Jay Jha are researching inhibition of enzymes known
to cause kidney injury in diabetes. See Diabetologia paper.
Image: Life Scientist

Recent publications for Central Clinical School affiliated authors in the departments of the Australian Centre for Blood Diseases (ACBD), Anaesthesia and Perioperative Medicine, Gastroenterology, Immunology and Pathology, Infectious Diseases, Monash Alfred Psychiatry research centre (MAPrc), Medicine, Melbourne Sexual Health Centre (MSHC), National Trauma Research Institute and Surgery.

Designer molecule could treat blood clotting without excessive bleeding

Christoph Hagemeyer's Nanobiotechnology group has a number of authors (bolded) on the JAHA paper: L-R Ms Shweta Jagdale, Dr Sumukh Kumble, Mr Sam Cohen, Ms Jasmine Putri, Dr Christoph Hagemeyer, Ms Hannah Pearce, Ms Edwina Jap, Dr Karen Alt,  Dr Thomas Bonnard

by Anne Crawford

A designer molecule developed by Monash University’s Australian Centre for Blood Diseases (ACBD) could prove a potent new treatment for the life-threatening blood clots that cause heart attack and stroke – without the associated side-effect of excessive bleeding.

Heart attack and stroke are leading causes of death and long-term disability in Australia, and are mostly caused by clotting (thrombosis) blocking blood to the heart or brain.

Dr Christoph Hagemeyer, group leader of the ACBD’s NanoBiotechnology Laboratory, said the new molecule had been shown in preclinical tests to be effective and safe, and may overcome limitations of current treatments.

'Universal key' approach to malaria points to new generation of vaccines

PhD student Kirsty Wilson is a co-author on both
papers on liver-stage infection by malaria parasites,
seen here presenting at a 2015 CCS symposium.

by Anne Crawford

Liver-stage infection by malaria parasites offers a key target for vaccines that aim to eradicate the disease. But the shape-shifting parasite has for decades defied concerted attempts by scientists to create a vaccine that will kill it in all its forms.

Monash researchers decided to review the field, hoping that insight and a fresh approach might point to a new solution. An unexpected finding they made in the research that followed could well be a pivotal first step in rationally designing a new generation of vaccines.

Fascination with 'bugs' leads to cystic fibrosis research

Dr Katherine Langan presenting at the
2016 CCS postgraduate symposium

by Anne Crawford

As a child, Katherine Langan was intrigued by bugs – but not the type you caught in jars. Dr Langan recalls being fascinated by infectious diseases since she was about 12 witnessing the advent, then spread of HIV/AIDs in Australia. Even then she wondered what could be done about it. 

Dr Langan’s interest in ‘bugs’ took her to Liverpool to study tropical medicine in 2011 and to Bangladesh to see first hand the effects of malaria in one of the country’s major teaching hospitals. The hospital was an eye-opener: there was no running water, no electricity for much of the day, patients had to pay for everything they used and were washed and fed by their families. Dr Langan watched as malaria killed young people who arrived too late to be effectively treated.

Now an infectious diseases specialist at The Alfred undertaking a PhD at the Central Clinical School, her preoccupation is with Pseudomonas aeruginosa, specifically in people with cystic fibrosis.

CCS Doctoral Student Profile - Waled Shihata

By Eliza Watson 

Waled Shihata at the 2016
CCS Graduate Symposium

Waled Shihata is a Monash University PhD student in the Vascular Pharmacology Laboratory and the Haematopoiesis and Leukocyte Biology Laboratory at the Baker Research Institute, where he is supervised respectively by Prof Jaye Chin-Dusting and A/Prof Andrew Murphy. He completed his Honours in the same lab at Baker Institute before beginning his PhD where he is currently researching high blood pressure in cardiovascular disease and the role of caveolae/caveolin proteins.

CCS Doctoral Student Profile - Lizzie Thomas

Lizzie Thomas, PhD student
at MAPrc

By Eliza Watson

Lizzie Thomas is a PhD student in the Cognitive Neuropsychiatry lab at the Monash Alfred Psychiatry research centre (MAPrc) where she is supervised by Dr Caroline Gurvich, Professor Susan Rossell and Dr Kiymet Bozaoglu. She studied a Bachelor of Biomedical Science and decided to undertake an Honours project which incorporated her interest in genetics. This led her to study at MAPrc and gain a whole new subject of knowledge - psychology.

Forthcoming grant opportunities

Forthcoming grant opportunities, compiled courtesy the Monash Biomedicine Discovery Institute.

• 2017 Prizes & Awards Calendar (January to April) (Monash authcate access only)
• 22 Feb: New York Stem Cell Investigator Awards
• 24 Feb: Call For Applications: CSIRO ON Prime6 Mar: NSW Genomics Collaborative Grants Program and SAX Institute
• 10 Mar: Sony Foundation fellowship
• 21 Apr: The Australian Gynaecological Cancer Foundation (AGCF) and Way In Network Post-Doctoral Research Fellowship 2017
• MS Research Australia - Online Grant Submission Portal

CCS Top Tweets: Mark Cooper and Stuart Marshall

Central Clinical School's @CCSMonash top recent tweets were for Professor Mark Cooper's AO and Dr Stuart Marshall's Radio National Health Report interview.