Congratulations to Dr Erica Plummer on her Jack Brockhoff ECR win

Congratulations to Dr Erica Plummer, of the Melbourne Sexual Health Centre, who has been awarded a competitive and prestigious early career research grant from the Jack Brockhoff Foundation.

Her project title is "Identifying novel infectious causes of urethritis to improve clinical management and antimicrobial stewardship". The grant amount for Dr Plummer's project is $144,013 across two years.

Congratulations to Erica Plummer and Sabrina Salberg on Bridging Postdoctoral Fellowships

L-R: Dr Erica Plummer and Ms Sabrina Salberg

Congratulations to Dr Erica Plummer and Ms Sabrina Salberg who have been awarded Bridging Postdoctoral Fellowships. It was a very competitive round.

The Bridging Postdoctoral Fellowships (BPF) support the career development of promising newly-qualified postdoctoral researchers and final year PhD students. They are intended to provide initial support for recent PhD graduates and final year PhD students while they apply for externally-funded fellowships.

Congratulations to Erica Plummer on her PhD completion!

Congratulations to Erica Plummer, who has completed her PhD degree!

Erica's thesis is titled, "Investigating the pathogenesis of bacterial vaginosis". She was supervised by Professor Catriona Bradshaw, Prof Kit Fairley, Dr Dieter Bulach, Dr Gerald Murray, Dr Lenka Vodstrcil and Dr Suzanne Garland.

Bacterial vaginosis (BV) is a highly prevalent vaginal condition that is associated with serious clinical sequelae. BV recurrence following first-line treatment with antibiotics is unacceptably high, and there have been few improvements in BV cure for decades. New and more effective treatments for BV are needed to reduce the serious sequelae associated with BV and the repeated antibiotic use that result from multiple recurrences. Erica's thesis aimed to investigate the pathogenesis of BV with a focus on evidence for sexual transmission, and to determine what factors influence the composition and stability of the vaginal microbiota.
 

Participants sought: Treating the male partners of women with bacterial vaginosis

Treating regular male partners of women with bacterial vaginosis
may reduce reinfection rates. Image: MSHC

Bacterial Vaginosis (BV) is a common vaginal condition among women which often comes back even after antibiotic treatment.

Some of the bacteria associated with BV are present on the genitals of male partners of women with BV. We believe that reinfection from sexual partners may be contributing to the high rates of women getting BV again.

IF YOU HAVE BACTERIAL VAGINOSIS AND HAVE A REGULAR MALE SEXUAL PARTNER, WE WOULD LOVE TO HEAR FROM YOU!