Lab-on-a-chip: the future of drug development technology

The tiny "lab-on-a-chip" used for blood tests. 

A tiny lab the size of a postage stamp could be the next big thing in the search for safer anti-clotting drugs to prevent heart attacks and strokes.

The new biocompatible lab-on-a-chip, based on microfluidic chip technology, can screen hundreds of drug compounds in just a few hours, revealing their effect on blood and quickly identifying those that have the most potential for clinical use.

Monash researcher Dr Warwick Nesbitt, led the team of biochemists from the Haematology Micro-platforms group at the Australian Centre for Blood Diseases (ACBD), collaborating with engineers from RMIT to use the pioneering device to better understand clotting mechanisms and develop new anti-clotting drugs.

Plans for China/Australia sexual health centre gain momentum

by Anne Crawford

Prof. Lei Zhang, earlier in the year at the collaborative meeting
to discuss the new joint centre.

The head of the Central Clinical School, Professor Stephen Jane, will visit China next week to discuss plans for a new joint centre researching sexual health, a collaboration between Monash University and Xi'an Jiaotong University in China (XJTU).

The China-Australia Joint Research Centre for Infectious Diseases will bring together researchers from the Central Clinical School’s Melbourne Sexual Health Centre (MSHC) and School of Public Health, Xi'an Jiaotong University in north-western China.

Professor Jane will meet with Professor Yan Hong, Vice President of Xi'an Jiaotong University, to discuss collaboration between the universities’ faculties of medicine, focussing on the exchange of academic staff and students, and possible joint programs.

Cross-disciplinary research links golden staph to autoimmune disease

Prof. Peleg with his lab group.

Professor Anton Peleg, Director of Infectious Diseases, recently collaborated on a paper published in Nature Communications.

The study found that the body may be fooled by a plasmid-derived protein from some types of Staph aureus (golden staph), resulting in the development of severe autoimmune disease. Plasmids have been associated with antibiotic resistance but this study now links them to autoimmune disease, specifically ANCA-associated vasculitis (AAV), a severe autoimmune disease caused by autoimmunity to myeloperoxidase (MPO).

CCS Recent Publications 13th - 19th August

Dr Natalie Thomas, MAPrc is
first author on a paper featured 
this week.

Recent publications for Central Clinical School feature affiliated authors in the following departments:

• Neuroscience
• Peninsula Clinical School
• Gastroenterology
• MSHC
• Infectious Diseases
• Diabetes
• MAPrc

SAVE THE DATE: Primary Immunodeficiencies Symposium this October

Dr Emily Edwards will
host the symposium

October 11^th sees the second annual symposium of the Jeffrey Modell Foundation (JMF) Centre for Primary Immunodeficiencies Melbourne, hosted by our own Dr Emily Edwards. The event theme is ‘Bridging Research and Care for Patients’, and it promises to provide stimulating content relevant to researchers in immunology, infectious diseases, and gastrointestinal medicine among others.

The Department of Immunology and Pathology’s A/Prof Menno van Zelm serves as the Director of the JMF Centre Melbourne, and Dr Emily Edwards is acting as conference host. Emily’s work focuses on investigating the impact of genetic mutations on B cell differentiation and function in patients with primary immunodeficiencies. She’ll be presenting on flow cytometry approaches to diagnosis and identification of prognostic markers for the development of non-infectious complications in primary immune deficiencies.

Monash professor urges action on epilepsy drugs

by Anne Crawford

Prof. Terence O'Brien

The Australian Government’s PBS urgently needs to update prescribing rules governing the use of anti-epileptic drugs that are putting unborn children and doctors at risk, the head of Monash University’s Department of Neuroscience has warned.

Professor Terence O’Brien said in a recent opinion piece in the Australian Medical Journal, co-authored with Professor Christian Gericke from the University of Queensland, that PBS rules for prescribing anti-epileptic drugs (AED) were 30 years old, and conflicted with those of regulatory agencies in the US and Europe.

Current PBS rules mandate that patients should be prescribed the older anti-epileptic drugs first, and only in patients in whom these fail can the newer generation drugs be prescribed. For patients with generalised epilepsies (when seizures start in both hemispheres of the brain) this means they need to be prescribed valproate first. Valproate is the most effective drug for patients with this group of epilepsies, but is associated with a high risk of birth defects, including spina bifida, and neurological development problems such as autism in babies, Professor O’Brien said.

Welcome Professor Natasha Lannin

Professor Natasha Lannin has recently joined the Central Clinical School’s Neuroscience Department from La Trobe University, running a group that researches life after neurological events. With their emphasis on rehabilitation, long-term outcomes and ongoing quality of life, the group’s work looks set to complement the Department’s current research portfolio, much of which focusses on prevention, diagnosis and treatment.

Natasha  - or Tash as she is happy to be called - also has a strong research interest in the implementation of clinical trial findings into medical practice, following her own experiences as a clinical trialist frustrated by slow adoption of new evidence. This has been a focus of much of her post-doctoral work, and will emerge as a theme in the studies that the new group undertakes.