SCS takes out first and second prizes in the Faculty’s 3MT competition

3MT Faculty winner Nicole Free

Nicole Free, a speech pathologist and PhD candidate in the SCS and Monash Health Department of Surgery, won first prize and will now represent the Faculty in the Monash University 3MT finals on August 16. Nicole’s research is examining how non-surgical interventions, like voice therapy, could potentially reverse or eliminate vocal fold lesions.  Watch Nicole HERE.

“I’m investigating how benign vocal fold lesions change across time, and if they respond to a patient’s vocal load or to targeted voice exercises,” Nicole said.

Vocal load refers to how much a person uses their voice and the activities or ways in which they use their voice.

“Lesions are usually the result of trauma associated with the person’s vocal load. They often have a significant impact on voice production, and subsequently on a person's social function and ability to do their job.”

"If lesions do change in response to these factors, the implication is that some people will not require surgery, which reduces the surgical burden on the delicate structure of the vocal fold tissue,'' Nicole said.

Nicole is supervised by Speech Pathologist Dr Debra Phyland, Head, Department of Surgery Professor Julian Smith, and Professor Joseph Stemple from the University of Kentucky.

Final year medical student and second place winner Aidan Kashyap is exploring therapies to help babies who struggle to breathe in their first moments of life due to underdeveloped lungs, as a result of a condition known as congenital diaphragmatic hernia (CDH).

Aidan’s presentation likened the supply of vital oxygen to a baby in utero via the umbilical cord to an astronaut’s spacesuit, which supplies the oxygen that enables them to breathe in orbit.

“Immediately clamping the umbilical cord when babies are born, before they begin to breathe on their own, leaves them with no source of oxygen and poor blood supply to the heart. It would be just like welcoming an astronaut back from space and disconnecting them from their life-support before they can get their helmet off to breathe on their own,” Aidan said.

“Babies, particularly those with underdeveloped lungs, will benefit from ensuring that they are breathing – either on their own or with respiratory support – before the umbilical cord is clamped.”

Supervised by Associate Professor Ryan Hodges in the Fetal Therapy Research Group, Aidan is helping to improve outcomes for babies with CDH.

Their approaches range from therapies that can be given to mothers during pregnancy, to surgery that can be performed on the fetus before birth, to a simple change to management at birth that involves keeping the umbilical cord attached for longer.

Ten PhD candidates from across the Faculty competed in the 3MT final on Thursday 12 July. 3MT is a national competition that challenges PhD students to communicate their research to a non-scientific audience in under three minutes.

Professor Nellie Georgiou-Karistianis, Associate Dean of Graduate Research, acknowledged the contribution of all finalists to ground-breaking research, with the potential to not only transform the lives of patients, but of whole communities and our society.