Citizen's jury on care for acquired brain injury rehabilitation

Rehabilitation for brain injury patients can be lifelong. A Citizen
Jury was asked for their recommendations on best care. Study

Brain injury rehabilitation is long‐term - in fact, it can be lifelong - and not cheap. So far, little published information or debate has informed policy for service delivery in Australia. 

As health budgets are finite, there are major challenges to providing the best care to people with brain injuries. 

Members of the public were invited to take part in a Citizen Jury at the Acquired Brain Injury (ABI) Centre in Melbourne. The ABI Centre features single-bed rooms at Caulfield Hospital and provides rehabilitation to meet the needs of people with severe brain injuries, resulting from trauma, stroke and other medical causes of acquired brain injury.  The Citizen Jurists were asked, ‘What considerations are important to include in a model of care of brain injury rehabilitation?’

24-30 Nov 2020 Central Clinical School publications

Prof Paul Zimmet explains that a registry, CoviDIAB, has
been established to track first time incidence of diabetes in
  COVID-19 patients. See video. His most recent paper shows

a pooled proportion of 14.4% (1 in 7) for newly diagnosed
diabetes in hospitalised COVID-19 patients. You can also
find out more at our 9 Dec forum on CCS registries.
Register here for the forum.

Recent publications featuring research as notified by PubMed during 24-30 November 2020 from Central Clinical School affiliated researchers in the following departments. The below is not a comprehensive list:

• Anaesthesiology and Perioperative Medicine
  
• Allergy, Immunology and Respiratory Medicine
• Australian Centre for Blood Diseases
• Diabetes
• Gastroenterology
• Medicine - Alfred & Peninsula
• Melbourne Sexual Health Centre
• Neuroscience
• Surgery

Congratulations, thanks and farewell to Associate Professor Justin Hamilton

L-R: A/Prof Justin Hamilton with his  PhD student at the time, Shauna French, who is now at Harvard Medical School; A/Prof Nigel Jones with his current PhD student Flavia Gomes; Prof Nicola Harris who became one of CCS's graduate research coordinators in November 2018.

Congratulations to Associate Professor Justin Hamilton on his new adventure as CSL's Director of In vivo Biology. We will all miss you! Professor Terry O'Brien, Head of School, writes:

Honours student Manisha Dona wins SOBR Excellence award

Honours student Manisha Dona

Congratulations to Manisha Dona, CCS Neuroscience BSc Honours student, who was awarded an Oral Presentation Excellence Award at the Students of Brain Research (SOBR) Network student symposium yesterday for her oral presentation titled “The association of diet, sleep and physical activity on disability outcomes in Multiple Sclerosis”.

Ms Neha Kaul co-supervised Manisha together with Dr Vilija Jokubaitis. Neha said, "Thank you to the Multiple Sclerosis & Neuro Immunology [MSNI] team, in particular Louise Rath and Vilija and her lab group for their support in this project.

"Congratulations Manisha, well deserved and a reflection of your hard work in this particularly difficult year!"

The research was funded in part by the Alfred Research Alliance EMCR Collaborative Seed Grant awarded in late 2019.

Emerging Leader Award 2020 to A/Prof David Wright

Associate Professor David Wright wins VBIC award

Congratulations to Associate Professor David Wright, who has won the Victorian Biomedical Imaging Capability (VBIC) Emerging Leader Award for 2020. 

A/Prof Wright's award was made by VBIC Chair, Professor Gary Egan and Victoria's Lead Scientist, Dr Amanda Caples. 

See more about the Alfred Research Alliance Monash Biomedical Imaging facilities of which David is the director, at www.monash.edu/medicine/ccs/neuroscience/facilities/imaging

Sustained COVID-19 immunity promising for vaccine effectiveness

The 20 Nov 2020 medRxiv preprint publication co-authors in Associate Professor Menno van Zelm's Immunology/Allergy research team include: L-R: Mrs Simone Reinwald, Ms Gemma Hartley (first author), Dr Craig McKenzie, Professor Robyn O'Hehir AO (author), Associate Professor Menno van Zelm (senior author), Ms Pei Mun Aui (author), Dr Emily Edwards (author), Mrs Neeru Varese (author).

Monash researchers have revealed – for the first time – that people who have been infected with the COVID-19 virus have sustained protection against reinfection for at least eight months.

The research is the strongest evidence for the likelihood that vaccines against the virus, SARS-CoV-2, will work for long periods.

Genomics, digital health and AI to prevent and treat superbugs

Culture and sensitivity testing of S. aureus
Image: Wikimedia

A Monash University project will harness the power of technology to help diagnose, treat and prevent one of the most pressing worldwide health issues - antimicrobial resistance.

A team of researchers from the Faculty of Medicine, Nursing and Health Sciences (MNHS) Department of Infectious Diseases, the Faculty of Information Technology (IT) and The Alfred’s Department of Infectious Diseases have been awarded $3.4M from the Medical Research Future Fund (MRFF) for the SuperbugAi Flagship project.