Monash, BiVACOR-led consortium to develop and commercialise world-first durable total artificial heart

The BiVACOR Total Artificial Heart shown in the chest cavity (left) and

 transparent image demonstrating the capacity to support the whole heart (right).

A national consortium of universities, hospitals and industry, led by Monash University and BiVACOR, have received $1 million from the MRFF,  to develop and commercialise a world-first durable Total Artificial Heart.

  
Heart failure is an epidemic that impacts more than 300,000 Australians. There is a clear gap in the market for patient-friendly devices to provide a solution to this chronic health challenge.  

The research team seeks to take this new artificial heart technology to market within the six-year duration of MRFF Frontiers program. See full story

2020 MIME Seed Funding recipients announced

The Monash Institute of Medical Engineering (MIME) has announced the successful applications from the 2020 Seed Funding round. There were 8 new projects and 1 top-up project (which had received funding from the 2019 round), with $450,000 in total being awarded. See detail.

Central Clinical School researchers are Clinical Champions on four of the projects. 

Congratulations to Alfred researchers on MIME funding

The Monash Institute of Medical Engineering (MIME) has announced its 2015 Seed Funding Awardees, to which over $700,000 has been disbursed in research project support. The projects will be undertaken in collaboration with researchers in the Faculties of Engineering and IT.

The Central Clinical School recipients were:

Professor Mark Fitzgerald (National Trauma Research Institute)   

• Chest trauma: Develop semi-automated device for emergency drainage of blood in the chest cavity (pleural decompression device)    
• Trauma resuscitation: Develop wireless heads-up display for real-time decision support in trauma situations   

Professor Anton Peleg (Department of Infectious Diseases)

• Hospital-acquired infections: Develop surface coatings for medical devices that resist the attachment of organisms and establishment of biofilms, particularly antibiotic resistance biofilms

Adjunct Professor Bruce Thompson (Allergy, Immunology and Respiratory Medicine )

• Asthma treatment: Development and testing of a nebulizer with “dial up” particle size control that can target small airways, improving the treatment of asthma   

Professor Andrew Spencer (Australian Centre for Blood Diseases)

• Multiple myeloma diagnostic tool: Develop a diagnostic test for detecting circulating tumour DNA for use in primary healthcare

 

 

MIME PhD Scholarship support

MIME also funds PhD scholarships so students can be recruited to work with researchers. Successful researchers from CCS were: 

Dr Heather Cleland, Mr Stephen Goldie (Department of Surgery)

• Burn injuries: Develop a tissue engineered skin substitute, which will enable rapid and permanent wound closure, as well as functional and aesthetic reconstruction   

Dr Stephen Ting (Australian Centre for Blood Diseases)

• Leukemia stem cell detection: Single cell identification, separation, isolation and assay of bone marrow and leukemia stem cells     

 


Professor Mark Fitzgerald (National Trauma Research Institute)   

• Trauma resuscitation – develop wireless heads-up display for real-time decision support   

Professor David Kaye (Department of Medicine, Baker IDI)

• Heart attack: Develop 3D-printed muscle patch for heart repair

Congratulations to PhD graduate Nick Lam on the award of his degree

Congratulations to Nicholas Lam, who has been awarded the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. Nicholas's thesis, "Cardiac regeneration: effect of nerve growth factor", was accepted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree by the Graduate Research Steering Committee on Tuesday 11 March 2014. Nicholas was supervised by Professor David Kaye, BakerIDI, who heads up the Heart Failure Research Group.