Prof Steve Wesselingh: Is there a 'right' way for a medical research career path? Find out more on 30 Sep 2015

Prof Steve Wesselingh, SAHMRI

Professor Steve Wesselingh is the inaugural Executive Director of the South Australian Health and Medical Research Institute (SAHMRI). He has also been appointed as the Infection and Immunity Theme Leader for the institute. He will be speaking at the forthcoming 30 Sept Translational Research symposium hosted by Central Clinical School. See detail below.

Explore translational research projects on 13 Aug at Central Clinical School (Alfred Health precinct)

If you want to help people, have a passion for following your intellectual curiousity in translational biomedical science and technology and want to open up your career options, take Honours or postgraduate research in the Central Clinical School (CCS) at AMREP. CCS has a wealth of research expertise and dedicated researchers with strong clinical connections who are experienced mentors for students.

Explore our translational research projects at 13 Aug 2015 Honours and Postgraduate Student Information Evening for 2016 intake

27 Jul 2015 CCS midyear Hons and research student orientation

The CCS Midyear student orientation is being held this coming Monday at 9 am, Lecture Theatre, Level 5 Alfred Centre. Welcome to all our new students! We have a large cohort from the University of Indonesia - all the best for settling in here.

Bachelor of Medical Science (Honours)

• Amanda Dharmaningputri
• Antonia Paramitha
• Shafira Rachmadi
• Aqila Zhafira
• Gryselda Hanafi
• Kevin Gunawan
• Rabbania Yan
• Raisa Sarita 

Bachelor of Biomedical Science (Honours)

• Aaron Hatzipantelis

Masters/PhD

• Julian Gooi
• Katrina Woodford
• Michael de Vries
• Ling Nhuc Mu
• Krystal Bergin
• Tanveer Ahmed

Congratulations to Dr Warwick Nesbitt, awarded a Vice Chancellors Senior Research Fellowship

Dr Warwick Nesbitt

Dr Warwick Nesbitt has been awarded a Vice Chancellors Senior Research Fellowship over 4 years as part of a strategic collaboration between the Vascular Biology Laboratory, ACBD and the Microplatforms Research Group, School of Electrical & Computer Engineering (SECE), RMIT University. The Vice-Chancellor’s Research Fellowships is a competitive scheme advertised internationally on an annual basis. Applicants are selected on the basis of their emerging excellent track record and international recognition for undertaking high quality research in one of RMIT's research priority areas. Dr Nesbitt’s fellowship is part of a new collaborative initiative to develop new bioengineered platforms, with a specific focus on basic platelet biology and haematology focussed diagnostic devices.

Publication: Rotary blood pumps and their complications in patient management

VentrAssist pump. Image:
Ventracor, Inc.

Ventricular assist devices currently do not have any ability to regulate flow in relation to demand.  As a result occasionally the device may suck down on the internal wall of the heart. This study in five large greyhound dogs implanted with a VentrAssist left ventricular assist device focused on identification of the precise site and physiological changes induced by or underlying the complication of left ventricular suction as a result of over pumping. Various complications are described in the study. The study authors contend that similar complications of manual speed control occur in humans and remain a major unsolved problem in the clinical management of patients implanted with rotary blood pumps.

Publication: Imatinib therapy and bleeding in CML patients

Image: www.genericmds.com

Imatinib is generally well tolerated, but gastric antral vascular ectasia (GAVE) remains a rare but significant complication of imatinib therapy. Whilst this complication has been described in other disease settings, only one other case of GAVE has been reported in a chronic myeloid leukaemia (CML) patient receiving imatinib. Herein, we present three CML patients with GAVE complicating imatinib therapy. In all cases, GAVE resolved only with cessation of imatinib. This confirms a causal relationship between GAVE and imatinib. GAVE should be considered as a possible cause of anaemia and upper gastrointestinal bleeding in patients receiving imatinib therapy.

Reference: Ong, J., Yeung, D., Filshie, R., Hughes, T.P., Nandurkar, H. Imatinib-induced gastric antral vascular ectasia in three patients with chronic myeloid leukaemia. Int J Hematol. 2015 Jul 2. [Epub ahead of print]

Publication: Grhl1 gene influences heart rate, not blood pressure

Image: www.livescience.com

The Grainyhead-like 1 (GRHL1) transcription factor is tissue-specific and is very highly expressed in the kidney. In humans the GRHL1 gene is located at the chromosomal position 2p25. A locus conferring increased susceptibility to essential hypertension has been mapped to 2p25 in two independent studies, but the causative gene has never been identified. Furthermore, a statistically significant association has been found between a polymorphism in the GRHL1 gene and heart rate regulation. The aim of our study was to investigate the physiological consequences of Grhl1 loss in a mouse model and ascertain whether Grhl1 may be involved in the regulation of blood pressure and heart rate. Our work did not discover any new evidence to suggest any involvement of Grhl1 in blood pressure regulation. However, we determined that the loss of Grhl1 influences the regulation of heart rate in a mouse model.

Reference: Pawlak M, Walkowska A, Mlącki M, Pistolic J, Wrzesiński T, Benes V, Jane SM, Wesoły J, Kompanowska-Jezierska E, Wilanowski T. Consequences of the loss of the Grainyhead-like 1 gene for renal gene expression, regulation of blood pressure and heart rate in a mouse model. Acta Biochim Pol. 2015;62(2):287-96. doi: 10.18388/abp.2015_1001. Epub 2015 Apr 21.