Tuesday 18 August 2020

Dr Ayse Zengin receives the prestigious Tall Poppy Award

Congratulations to Dr Ayse Zengin on receiving the 2020 Tall Poppy Award for her research into musculoskeletal diseases.

The prestigious annual Young Tall Poppy Science Awards aim to recognise the achievements of Australia’s outstanding young scientific researchers and communicators.

As a Senior Research Fellow in the Bone and Muscle Research Group within the School of Clinical Sciences at Monash Health, Dr Zengin is focussing on the issue in developing countries and underserved populations, where bone health is often overlooked until a life-changing fracture occurs. “By gaining a better understanding of bone health in different ethnic populations, we can devise targeted preventive strategies to help maintain better bones throughout life, thus decreasing the likelihood of fracture,” she said.

With numerous international collaborators in Germany, the UK and elsewhere in Australia, Dr Zengin has published 26 articles, seventeen as first author. In 2017 she received an Ian Potter Foundation Grant toward purchasing the latest high-resolution bone-imaging device (first in Australia). The following year Dr Zengin was awarded a prestigious fellowship from the Australian Academy of Science which allowed her to conduct musculoskeletal research across 3 leading Indian Institutes over 6 months. In 2019, she secured funding from Osteoporosis Australia, and internationally from Amgen to fund Australia’s first Study of Indigenous Muscle and Bone Ageing, to identify why fracture and falls risk is higher in this population, and thereby contributing to closing the gap.

Speaking of the award, Dr Zengin said “the Tall Poppy Science Award is recognition of the importance of looking at diseases within different ethnic groups and in our Indigenous population, and that a "one size fits all" approach is not appropriate; these will prevent fractures along with improve screening, diagnosis and treatment of bone disease".

For information on all Tall Poppy award recipients, please visit the Faculty web page.

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