AMREP Early Career Researcher retreat a success

The Early Career Researcher (ECR) committee at the Alfred Medical Research and Education Precinct are very active in promoting the development and welfare of ECRs including PhD students as well as postdocs. They held their third annual retreat 26-27 September 2013, attended by approximately 100 ECRs from the AMREP precinct, which includes two Monash Schools, the Burnet and the BakerIDI Institutes. For more about the ECR, see www.med.monash.edu/cecs/ecr.

Congratulations to Immunology PhD students Maria Demaria and Eleanor Jones for IgV prizes

Maria Demaria

Eleanor Jones

Monash Department of Immunology's PhD students, Maria Demaria and Eleanor Jones, won two of the three prizes awarded for best presentation at the Immunology Group Victoria's (IgV) annual retreat, 26-27 Sept 2013.  The prizes are travel awards to attend the Australasian Society of Immunology conference in Wellington, NZ in December 2013.

Spotlight on: Phil Lewis, PhD student, Department of Surgery

Phil Lewis is a PhD student in the Department of Surgery, co-supervised by Professor Jeffrey V. Rosenfeld. Dussy Kuttner, CCS Communications intern, reports on the why and how questions of Phil's research. His thesis topic is 'Methodological considerations in cerebral autoregulation assessment'. See more:
http://www.med.monash.edu.au/cecs/education/profiles/lewis.html

Spotlight on: Nigel Rogasch, PhD student, MAPrc

Nigel is a PhD student in the Monash Alfred Psychiatry research centre, supervised by Professor Paul Fitzgerald. Dussy Kuttner, CCS Communications intern, reports on the why and how questions of Nigel's research. His thesis topic is 'The relationship between depression and dysfunctional coordination of neural activity as measured by EEG activity'. See full interview at:
http://www.med.monash.edu.au/cecs/education/profiles/rogasch.html

ACBD research: Glucose regulation, diabetes and cardiovascular protection

Radio 4BC interview with Dr Anthony Dear, Australian Centre for Blood Diseases with Gary Hardgrave.  Dr Dear's research group has found some promising potential of a new glucose regulating drug which could improve the condition of arteries for diabetes sufferers, possible protection them against heart attack or stroke. Dr Dear says they have some potentially exciting results on their hands for the millions of people who suffer from type 2 diabetes because their vascular health is very poor and drugs that are available today really don't address vascular health.

Department of Infectious Diseases research is top rated by international peers

A/Prof Edwina Wright

At the recent Interscience Conference on Antimicrobial Agents Chemotherapy (ICAAC), held in Denver, Sept 10-13 2013 two papers by members of the Department of Infectious Diseases, Central Clinical School, Monash University were featured in the Literature Review Session. One was co-authored by A/Prof Edwina Wright and the other by Dr Orla Morrissey. These two papers were considered as amongst the best infectious diseases papers published in the 12 months to date.

A new role discovered for a familiar enzyme: PI3K and the regulation of cell survival

In recent studies headed by Dr Mark Guthridge in the Leukemia Research Laboratory at the Australian Centre for Blood Diseases, Monash University and published in PLOS Biology, a new role was identified for the protein kinase activity of PI3K in regulating the “survival-only” response of human hematopoietic (blood) cells. These studies provide the first evidence that the protein kinase activity of PI3K can control cell survival and that this activity is a therapeutic target in cancer.