Lab-on-a-chip: the future of drug development technology

The tiny "lab-on-a-chip" used for blood tests. 

A tiny lab the size of a postage stamp could be the next big thing in the search for safer anti-clotting drugs to prevent heart attacks and strokes.

The new biocompatible lab-on-a-chip, based on microfluidic chip technology, can screen hundreds of drug compounds in just a few hours, revealing their effect on blood and quickly identifying those that have the most potential for clinical use.

Monash researcher Dr Warwick Nesbitt, led the team of biochemists from the Haematology Micro-platforms group at the Australian Centre for Blood Diseases (ACBD), collaborating with engineers from RMIT to use the pioneering device to better understand clotting mechanisms and develop new anti-clotting drugs.

Plans for China/Australia sexual health centre gain momentum

by Anne Crawford

Prof. Lei Zhang, earlier in the year at the collaborative meeting
to discuss the new joint centre.

The head of the Central Clinical School, Professor Stephen Jane, will visit China next week to discuss plans for a new joint centre researching sexual health, a collaboration between Monash University and Xi'an Jiaotong University in China (XJTU).

The China-Australia Joint Research Centre for Infectious Diseases will bring together researchers from the Central Clinical School’s Melbourne Sexual Health Centre (MSHC) and School of Public Health, Xi'an Jiaotong University in north-western China.

Professor Jane will meet with Professor Yan Hong, Vice President of Xi'an Jiaotong University, to discuss collaboration between the universities’ faculties of medicine, focussing on the exchange of academic staff and students, and possible joint programs.

Cross-disciplinary research links golden staph to autoimmune disease

Prof. Peleg with his lab group.

Professor Anton Peleg, Director of Infectious Diseases, recently collaborated on a paper published in Nature Communications.

The study found that the body may be fooled by a plasmid-derived protein from some types of Staph aureus (golden staph), resulting in the development of severe autoimmune disease. Plasmids have been associated with antibiotic resistance but this study now links them to autoimmune disease, specifically ANCA-associated vasculitis (AAV), a severe autoimmune disease caused by autoimmunity to myeloperoxidase (MPO).

CCS Recent Publications 13th - 19th August

Dr Natalie Thomas, MAPrc is
first author on a paper featured 
this week.

Recent publications for Central Clinical School feature affiliated authors in the following departments:

• Neuroscience
• Peninsula Clinical School
• Gastroenterology
• MSHC
• Infectious Diseases
• Diabetes
• MAPrc