(Formerly known as Central Clinical School)
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| Professor Anne Holland |
All welcome, register here.
Details
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| Dr Rhys Brady is first author on the paper |
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| Liquid biopsies for diagnosis and management of plasma cell disorders such as Multiple Myeloma are promising. See study. Image of MM patient provided by Prof Andrew Spencer.
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RNA therapeutics are a disruptive technology with the potential to actualize personalized medicine. Most RNA does not encode sequences for protein synthesis (mRNA; e.g. for vaccines). These other functions can be harnessed to selectively modulate protein expression by silencing, binding as aptamers and altering mRNA splicing. As an example, we are developing an oligonucleotide that modulates the alternate splicing of the Receptor for Advanced Glycation End-products (RAGE), a key therapeutic target in Alzheimer’s disease.
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| L-R: Dr Anna Kalff and Daniel So, recent PhD graduates |
Anna Kalff's thesis is titled, "Multiple myeloma strategies to predict outcomes in the era of novel anti-myeloma therapies". She was supervised by Professor Andrew Spencer and Dr Tiffany Khong in the Australian Centre for Blood Diseases.
Daniel So's thesis is titled, "Translating functional characteristics of dietary fibre to clinical value in patients with irritable bowel syndrome". He was supervised by Associate Professor Jane Muir, Dr CK Yao and Professor Peter Gibson in the Department of Gastroenterology.
See more below about their work.
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| Blood donors wanted for Australian Centre for Blood Diseases research. Contact Nikki.Kara@monash.edu |
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| Dr Shobi Sivathamboo |
Her presentation entry was titled 'Short-term heart rate variability (HRV) predicts SUDEP' which she presented with her team members and collaborators Professor Terence O'Brien, Head of CCS, Leader of Epilepsy and Neuropharmacology Research Group, Department of Neuroscience (Monash University), and Professors Orrin Devinsky and Daniel Friedman from New York University Langone Health (see screenshot).
The team found that short-term heart-rate variability, which is a non-invasive and readily obtained marker of autonomic function, predicted SUDEP. Heart rate variability is a validated biomarker for sudden cardiac death in cardiovascular disease populations. Shobi commented that 'our team's entry went really well but we don't know how much we will receive just yet.'
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| Zoom screenshot of finalists competing in the 2021 SUDEP Challenge. |
All finalists will now await to hear which of them were successful and how much of the US$1M prize money they will be awarded. The Epilepsy Foundation SUDEP Institute challenge aims to predict sudden death in epilepsy or seizures that compromise cardiac or respiratory function in people with epilepsy. These predictors will drive human SUDEP interventions. Since the severity and frequency of seizures is currently the leading risk factor for SUDEP, a biomarker that can predict seizures, especially convulsive seizures that compromise cardiac or respiratory function, will be included in the challenge.
Dr Sivathamboo was also successful in one of the challenge's earlier milestones in which her team received US$10,000.
