National Centre for Healthy Ageing (NCHA) web site now live

The National Centre for Healthy Ageing (NCHA) is a recently established joint venture between Peninsula Health and Monash University (Central Clinical School), and its newly appointed Director is Professor Velandai Srikanth, also Head of the Academic Unit, Medicine, Peninsula Clinical School. The NCHA now has a partnership website. See more:

• Web: www.monash.edu/medicine/national-centre-for-healthy-ageing
• Contact: ncha-enquiries@monash.edu 
• 21 Nov announcement of Prof Srikanth's appointment 

Congratulations to Mr Hattapark Dejakaisaya on his PhD completion

Congratulations to Mr Hattapark Dejakaisaya on his PhD completion, on 3 Feb 2022! 

Hattapark's thesis is titled "The Role of Glutamate in the Pathogenesis of Acquired Epilepsy in Alzheimer's Disease". He was supervised by Professor Patrick Kwan  and Associate Professor Nigel Jones, both in Department of Neuroscience at CCS.

He writes, "Alzheimer’s disease (AD) patients have up to 10-fold higher risk of developing epilepsy compared to healthy controls. However, the mechanism that links AD pathologies to epileptic seizures is not elucidated. We do know that disruption to glutamate-glutamine cycle in the brain caused by AD has the potential to enhance this risk. 

Participants sought: How does Vitamin D supplementation affect your immune system?

Participants are sought for a research study to understand better
how taking a Vitamin D supplement affects your immune cells.

Changes to the immune system after vitamin D supplementation in healthy individuals and people with multiple sclerosis

Vitamin D is a vitamin with roles in calcium-phosphate metabolism and in bone health. It has also been found to regulate cell functions, including those of the immune system. Multiple sclerosis (MS) is one of the most common disabling neurological conditions among young adults. Low Vitamin D levels are associated with elevated risk of developing MS. It is not currently well understood how Vitamin D affects immune cells in people.

Congratulations to Dr Gemma Sharp on best paper award!

A paper on the KIT chatbot concept and methodology led by Dr Gemma Sharp
has won best paper award from the Society for Mental Health Research

Congratulations to Dr Gemma Sharp, who has won the 'Best Paper' competition of The Society for Mental Health Research. Dr Sharp is senior author on "Development of a positive body image chatbot (KIT) with young people and parents/carers: Qualitative focus group study."

The paper outlines the co-design of the chatbot which led to KIT's successful launch in November 2020 on the Butterfly Foundation website and on Facebook chat. KIT has helped over 20,000 people in their first year of life and has big plans for 2022!

$19.3 million for rare cancer and rare disease research

L-R: Prof Andrew Spencer (ACBD), A/Prof Trisha Peel (Infectious

Diseases) and Adj.A/Prof Charles Pilgrim (Surgery) in CCS

have won MRFF grants.

Researchers in the Faculty of Medicine, Nursing and Health Sciences will receive $19,324,213 under the 2021 Rare Cancers, Rare Diseases and Unmet Need (RCRDUN) grant opportunity.

Congratulations to the three researchers from Central Clinical School who received MRFF funding. See detail below.

Congratulations for Dean's award for BMedSc(Honours) thesis!

Congratulations to Ms Raysha Farah (pictured), who was the highest achieving student for the BMedSc(Hons) program from the August 2020–June 2020 cohort from Universitas Indonesia! She was supervised by Associate Professor David Wright and Dr Akram Zamani, both in Central Clinical School's Department of Neuroscience.

Raysha said, "My thesis was chosen to be presented at the Dean's Award Ceremony on Saturday 27 November 2021. I would like to thank everyone involved at the Central Clinical School for your continuous and endless support towards the whole honors program. I am really lucky to have talented supervisors such as David and Akram."