(Formerly known as Central Clinical School)
RAGE Biotech Founder, Chief Scientific Officer and Monash University Professor MerlinThomas said, “We are delighted with this support from mRNA Victoria, which recognises the potential of RNA technology to change the lives of people struggling with inflammatory lung disease. At RAGE Biotech, we have applied this disuptive technology to an important therapeutic target that has so far been impossible to hit.”
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| Fiona Qiu is a PhD student working on antiepileptic drugs in pregnancy |
Congratulations to Fiona Qiu who has won an Australian Institute of Nuclear Science and Engineering (AINSE) Postgraduate Research Award (PGRA) for her project, Antiepileptic Drugs in Pregnancy and in Neonates: Brain Entry and Effects on its Development.
Fiona is a PhD student, supervised by Associate Professor Nigel Jones. She describes the project, saying, "Numerous chronic diseases, such as epilepsy, necessitate long-term treatment of patients even during pregnancy and lactation, since discontinuation of medication has the potential to cause serious harm to the mother, and subsequently her offspring."
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| Adj A/Prof Anne Abbott recently published a review of treatment for arterial narrowing, and found that lifestyle changes are more effective than surgery. See her Channel 9 news interview. |
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| Dr Miles Andrews, CCS EMCR rep |
Update from Dr Miles Andrews, CCS EMCR Representative
12 July 2022
It’s been a little while since our last newsletter, so here is your list of programs, events and grants that might be of interest to you, together with links to Monash ECR portals and gateways.
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| Drs Idrish Ali and Evelyn Tsantikos won The Pitch |
The Gastroenterology-Immunology-Neuroscience (GIN) Hub news update for 13 July, compiled by Alana Auden
Congratulations Drs Idrish Ali and Evelyn Tsantikos for being awarded funding in Round 2 of The Pitch for their project "Role of granulocyte-colony-stimulating factor signalling in epilepsy".
This collaborative project between Idrish (O’Brien group - Neuroscience) and Evelyn (Hibbs group - Immunology) beat some stiff competition in the GIN Hub seed funding scheme. We look forward to seeing what exciting EMCR collaborative projects are submitted in Round 3, which is already open and closes on Wednesday 10 August. Further details on how to apply for The Pitch can be found here.
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| Dr Mahima Kapoor is the first author on a study which shows higher risk for patients who have suffered clotting events from a particular treatment, intravenous immunoglobulin. |
by Dr Loretta Piccenna, Department of Neuroscience
An important analysis using the UK Biobank published this month by researchers in the Neuromuscular group in the Department of Neuroscience has shown a three-fold higher risk of blood clots, or thromboembolic events (TEEs), in patients with a prior history of these events when they were treated with intravenous immunoglobulin (IVIg) (1).
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| Patient precentors Peter Henwood, Neil Wilkshire and David Croker from Purple House in the Northern Territory gave first hand accounts of the education process. Video |
On Fri 8 July, Professor Paul Lawton shared his valuable insights as part of the NAIDOC week Central Clinical School Seminar Series. We were fortunate that he was able to be joined by a First Nation Peoples panel, with extra special thanks to Peter Henwood, David Croker and Neil Wilkshire from Purple House direct from the Northern Territory (NT), who provided a firsthand perspective on the challenges and opportunities that the health system faces in providing adequate care to the huge number of Australians affected by kidney disease. See CCS GEDI web page for video.
Importantly, the significant lack of parity between renal transplants in indigenous renal patients, dramatically reducing their survival rates in the NT, was highlighted as a critical national healthcare issues that needs to be immediately addressed.
