Translational Research Young Investigator Poster Competition - Register by 3 July!

The TR Symposium is coming up soon!

The 3rd annual Monash University Translational Research (TR) Symposium will be held 31 July 2017. The event is hosted by the three Monash clinical schools and will showcase the diverse research from these schools.

A Young Investigator poster competition will be held, with a winning prize of $500. The competition is open to graduate student and early career researchers, who are within 5 years of completing their PhD. Entries close 3 July!

CCS publications update: 30 June - 7 July 2017

Reducing the maternal dietary intake of
indigestible and slowly absorbed short-
chain carbohydrates is associated with
improved infantile colic. See study

Recent publications for Central Clinical School affiliated authors in the following departments. Note, browse down this entry for pubs listing. Linked headings are to the departments' home pages.

• Anaesthesia and Perioperative Medicine (APOM)
• Australian Centre for Blood Diseases (ACBD) 
• Gastroenterology
• Immunology and Pathology
• Infectious Diseases
• Monash Alfred Psychiatry research centre (MAPrc) 
• Surgery 

Monash study points to new blood test for cardiovascular risk

Dr Prahlad Ho presenting at ASH15
meeting. Image: @marrow

by Anne Crawford

It has long been a conundrum for clinicians and researchers pondering cardiovascular disease; a 90-year-old overweight man who has been smoking heavily all his life is admitted to hospital with an unrelated condition and is found to have a healthy heart while a fit 25-year-old athlete elsewhere inexplicably dies of a massive heart attack.

Now, scientists from the Australian Centre for Blood Diseases, Monash University, Northern Health and the University of Melbourne are collaboratively evaluating a new blood test that could add to the surrogate measures currently used clinically as an assessment of cardiovascular risk. Currently no such blood test exists, they say.

Improved prostate cancer management vital for older men

Associate Professor Jeremy Grummet (right) with a patient

by Anne Crawford

Prostate cancer is the most frequent male cancer and the third most common cause of cancer death in Australia.

With an exponentially ageing population and lengthening life expectancy, the burden of this cancer – already a disease of older males – is going to be what Monash University Associate Professor Jeremy Grummet calls “massive”. The number of Australians aged 65 and over is expected to increase from around 2.5 million in 2002 to 6.2 million in 2042; from around 13 per cent of the population to 25 per cent.

Participants sought: Health benefits of dietary fibre

Sri Lankan beef curry is on the study menu

Healthy volunteers are required for a study investigating the optimal increase in dietary fibre to improve bowel movement and gut bacteria. This study involves volunteers consuming nutritionally balanced diets that vary only in their dietary fibre content, over an entire period of 8 weeks. All cooked food will be supplied. Participants will be asked to purchase the fresh food component of the diet. All the diets have been designed and prepared by a fully qualified and experienced professional chef.

Participants sought: Can fibromyalgia be reduced by brain stimulation?

The Monash Alfred Psychiatry Research Centre (MAPrc) at the Alfred Hospital is currently seeking volunteers for a clinical trial of a non-medication investigational treatment for fibromyalgia.

Theta Burst Stimulation (TBS) is a painless, safe, and non-invasive means of stimulating nerve cells in the brain. We are conducting this study to see whether we can reduce the symptoms of fibromyalgia.

To be involved, participants must be aged between 18 and 75 years and have a diagnosis of fibromyalgia. Participation will involve attending the Alfred for an initial 2 week period of daily (Monday-Friday) treatments followed by a 2 week period of 3 treatments per week. Each treatment appointment takes approximately 30 minutes.

Enquiries & further information

Contact: Ms Laura Knox
Email: laura.knox@monash.edu
Phone: (03) 9076 9896
Study detail: ccs-clin-trials.med.monash.edu.au/trials/double-blind-randomised-sham-controlled-trial-prefrontal-theta-burst-stimulation-fibromyalgia
Web: www.maprc.org.au/dr-bernadette-fitzgibbon

PEACE: A cantata for John Monash: 9 Sep 2017

Let there be peace! the clarion call of Melbourne’s most famous son, John Monash, opens a new massed choral work premiering in Hamer Hall on September 9. Composed by David Kram and Poet Kevin O’Flaherty, PEACE is the first musical work to tell the story of the great man’s life. 

For more information about PEACE and John Monash, visit More than Opera’s website: www.morethanopera.com,
https://www.johnmonashpeaceconcert.com/
Buy tickets from
www.artscentremelbourne.com.au