1,000,000+ views for CCS Monash Google+ channel = ++Good!

Central Clinical School's Google+ channel has reached over a million views. What this actually means is moot, but it's a fun vanity figure. We host our photo galleries of our researchers, research students and research activities, which apparently get a lot of views, and all our news items get posted through this channel.
Link url: https://plus.google.com/+CentralClinicalSchoolMonashUniversity1/posts

Odd spot: Heart donation & when is dead not dead?

The Medical Journal of Australia recently published an article entitled "Transplantation of the heart after circulatory death of the donor: time for a change in law?" Prof Frank Rosenfeldt, Department of Surgery, (pictured with a patient) said that the article will increase both medical practitioners and the general public's confusion about the legal point of death and possibly affect donor rates, already low in this country. The Age has subsequently published a critique, which can be read in full here:
Surgeons hit back at claims heart transplants are against the law.

See also: Push for Australia to introduce opt-out system for organ donation

Photo of the week: AMREP information night

Professor Harshal Nandurkar, Director of the Australian Centre for Blood Diseases (ACBD), with one of the 200 interested students at the AMREP Honours information evening. The ACBD are planning a symposium later in 2015.
See AMREP Information night photo gallery.

Forthcoming CCS events: Seminars, public events, general notices

Andrew Guy (Burnet) at the 3MT
CCS heat

Central Clinical School has regular seminar series and postgraduate presentations. All event notices are maintained on the CCS Events calendar.

CCS staff & students can see details of both public and local events (including professional development courses, trade fairs and Graduate Research Student calendars) and deadlines, at the Intranet's Announcements page.

Various departments have their own calendars. See CCS seminar index: www.med.monash.edu.au/cecs/events/seminars.html

What's on for this week: 21 - 25 Sep 2015

Fri	►	18-Sep	12:30	Immunology journal club: Menno van Zelm.
Mon	►	21-Sep	12:30	Psychiatry Professorial Grand Round
Tue	►	22-Sep	16:00	PhD Pre-Submission Review : Mr Aaron David McClelland

In the Future

• 30 Sep Translational Research symposium: Alfred Medicine 50th anniversary
• 9 Oct CCS Public Lecture: Prof Jayashri Kulkarni on women's mental health
• 18 Nov Post Graduate symposium

Professor David Curtis: Mighty Mouse or Mickey Mouse. Find out more on 30 Sep 2015

Associate Prof David Curtis

Associate Professor David Curtis is a Viertel Medical Research Fellow at the Australian Centre for Blood Diseases based at the Alfred Hospital, Melbourne. Professor Curtis will be speaking at the forthcoming 30 Sept Translational Research symposium hosted by Central Clinical School. See detail below.

Publication: Promising HIV cure drugs less effective on the virus in the brain

Dr Lachlan Gray, HIV researcher at the Burnet Institute

A Burnet Institute study has revealed treatments currently being trialed as a potential cure for HIV are less effective on the HIV virus in the brain compared to that found in the blood.

Published in the prestigious Nature journal, Molecular Psychiatry, the study tested a number of HIV ‘cure agents’ and found the two most promising of those, panobinostat and romidepsin, might not work effectively within the brain.

Publication: Cost effectiveness of chlamydia screening for pregnant women aged 16-25 years attending an antenatal service

Image: sexetc.org

Is it worth testing all young pregnant women for chlamydia? This study argues that it is.

Using clinical data from a previous study, and outcomes data from the literature, the authors modelled the short-term perinatal (12-month time horizon) incremental direct costs and outcomes from a government (as the primary third-party funder) perspective for chlamydia screening. Costs were derived from the Medicare Benefits Schedule, Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme, and average cost-weights reported for hospitalisations classified according to the Australian refined diagnosis-related groups.