School of Clinical Sciences (SCS) welcomes our students

Year 3 MBBS student Ryan Forbes started his surgery  rotation 
last week (a quadruple bypass performed by Professor Smith)

The School of Clinical Sciences at Monash Health welcomes all new and returning students at the commencement of the 2015 academic year.

As the largest clinical school in the Faculty of Medicine, Nursing and Health Sciences, we are proud to make welcome:

• 546 MBBS students
• 23 new BMedSci Honours students
• 31 BMS/BSc Hons students
• 160 PhD and Masters students

Ryan and  Head of Surgery, Professor Julian Smith

Orientation information:

Student cohort	Session	Date	Time	Location
BMedSci Honours	Orientation and Welcome by Head of SCS	Thursday 5th March	11.00am - 12.00pm	Medicine Seminar Room, Level 5 Block E MMC
BMS/BSc Honours	Faculty orientation	This week (23-27 February)	See here for details.	Clayton campus
PhD	Orientation	Friday 10th April	10.00am - 12.30pm	Medicine Seminar Room, Level 5 Block E MMC

New Institute to improve health through development of medical technology

MIME Director, Professor Rosenfeld

A generous scholarship funded by Monash Health will help enable important biomedical research at a new and unique collaboration, the Monash Institute of Medical Engineering (MIME).

Established to forge stronger research partnerships between clinicians and engineering, IT, scientific and biomedical researchers, the collaborative translational research at MIME is specifically directed at improving human health.

The Monash Health Foundation has given $75,000 towards funding two PhD scholarships at MIME; with additional contributions by the School of Clinical Sciences at Monash Health and the Faculties of Engineering and IT at Monash University, a total of six MIME PhD scholarships will be available at the Monash Health Translation Precinct (MHTP).

This is an exciting opportunity for postgraduate students to embark on a cross-disciplinary PhD to develop new medical technology within a dynamic and supportive research environment, MIME Director and renowned neurosurgeon Professor Jeffrey V. Rosenfeld said.

"MIME is very appreciative of the support from the Monash Health Foundation and the School of Clinical Sciences at Monash Health to establish these scholarships," added Professor Rosenfeld.

Foundation grant awarded to further rheumatology research

Dr Jim Harris

Congratulations Dr Jim Harris who has received a competitive Rebecca L. Cooper Medical Research Foundation grant.

The Foundation Grant worth $22,000 will be used towards a new piece of equipment, a Direct Detect Spectrometer from Millipore.

The Rebecca L Cooper Medical Research Foundation directs funds towards high quality research and high quality researchers to support the direct costs of research, typically tangibles including laboratory equipment and consumables.

“We’re really pleased with the outcome as this is the first time we’ve applied for one of these grants,” said Chief Investigator Dr Harris.

Dr Sarah Jones and Professor Eric Morand are co-investigators on the grant proposal, "New Therapeutic Targets in Rheumatological Diseases".

“The new equipment will allow us to measure protein levels in biological samples, including clinical samples, serum, etc. much more quickly and efficiently than previously,” added Dr Harris.

The machine will be used in the laboratory’s study of rheumatological diseases, including lupus and rheumatoid arthritis.

MHTP Translational Research Facility nears completion

The exterior of the new MHTP-TRF

The MHTP Executive Group was recently taken on a tour of the impressive construction site of the new Translational Research Facility.

The group included Monash Health Chief Executive Shelly Park, Chief Operating Officer Siva Sivarajah, Monash University Faculty of Medicine, Nursing and Health Sciences Dean Professor Christina Mitchell, Director of MIMR-PHI Institute Professor Bryan Williams, and Director Monash
Partners Academic Health Science Centre Michael Wright.

With all exterior works nearly complete, construction of the new MHTP-TRF is approaching lock-up stage.

HEARING THE VOICE OF VULNERABLE CHILDREN - Winston S Rickards Memorial Oration 2015

Bernie Geary

You are invited to attend the sixth Winston S. Rickards Memorial Oration, to be delivered by Bernie Geary, Principal Commissioner, Commission for Children and Young People, Victoria. 

This will take place on Monday , 16^th March 2015 at 7.30pm in the Ella Latham Theatre, The Royal Children’s Hospital, Flemington Road, Parkville, Victoria.

Bernie’s address is titled “HEARING THE VOICE OF VULNERABLE CHILDREN”. He will speak about how the Commission for Children and Young People in Victoria, which celebrates its tenth year in 2015, goes about its major task of ensuring the safety and wellbeing of Victoria’s more vulnerable children.  RSVP: celia.godfrey@mcri.edu.au

2015 NHMRC TRIP Fellowships Round - NOW OPEN

The 2015 NHMRC Translating Research Into Practice (TRIP) Fellowships Round is now open. 

NHMRC TRIP Fellowships provide support for health care professionals (e.g medical specialists, general practitioners, public health practitioners, physiotherapists, nurses, midwives, radiologists, and other allied health providers), health care personnel (health service managers, hospital department leaders, clinical trial managers) health systems personnel, health researchers and health policy makers to translate evidence into health care and public health improvements.

The Fellowships provide for 0.5 of a full time equivalent position and ensure time for Fellows to develop the range of skills needed for leadership in research translation within their career. TRIP Fellowships are not designed to support applicants already established as health care leaders.

The MRO submission process and other important information for this scheme are available at: http://intranet.monash.edu.au/researchadmin/nhmrc/nhmrc-tripfellowships.html

All queries regarding this scheme should be directed to the Medical and Health Sciences Team at MRO (mhs@monash.edu).

2015 Leibniz-DAAD Research Fellowships

The DAAD is pleased to announce that the annual Leibniz-DAAD Research Fellowships are open for applications. 

The Leibniz-DAAD Research Fellowship programme is jointly carried out by the Leibniz Association (Wissenschaftsgemeinschaft Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz e.V.) and the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD). Leibniz-DAAD fellowships offer highly-qualified, international postdoctoral researchers, who have recently completed their doctoral studies, the opportunity to conduct research at a Leibniz Institute of their choice in Germany.

The deadline for applications is 16 March 2015.  Please see the attached document or the links below for further information.

NHMRC-ARC Dementia Research Development Fellowships

The Australian Research Council (ARC) in partnership with the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) will deliver the Australian Government’s $200 million ‘Boosting Dementia Research’ initiative.

Below is a joint message from the ARC, NHMRC and the NHMRC National Institute for Dementia Research. 

We are writing to you to provide further information about the joint NHMRC-ARC Dementia Research Development Fellowships to which we hope you are encouraging a broad group of talented, emerging researchers to apply.

The NHMRC National Institute for Dementia Research (NNIDR) has the brief from the Government to ‘change the game’ in dementia research in Australia. The intent of the new NNIDR joint dementia fellowships is to boost the workforce with the most flexible and ‘gettable’ human resource in the research workforce, namely ‘new’ researchers’, that is those awarded PhDs in the last four (4) years. This group are also more likely to stay in the field once they are embedded in teams.

Honours, Masters and PhD students - Student Society AGM and Free lunch!!!

It is that time of year again for the first student event of the year, the Annual General Meeting...

We would like to invite all Honours, Masters and PhD students to a free lunch and to nominate the new up and coming Student Society members.

The Annual General Meeting will be held in the MIMR Building, Level 3, boardroom, 12:30-13:30, on the 17^th March 2015.

With the New Year and a plethora of new students from both MIMR-PHI and SCS there is an exciting opportunity for new students to become an integral part of the Institute and leaders among the student community.

There are 4 office bearer positions to be filled; President, Vice President, Treasurer and Secretary (role description here) and a number of centre rep positions. So get to thinking and talking to your colleagues because we would like nominations emailed to the Student Society between now and the 17^th March 2015 (email to phiss@monashclubs.org).

This is a great opportunity to meet your peers and plan for future events. So bring your student ID, your opinion and an empty stomach.

MCHRI inservice PhD workshop

Want to add something stimulating to your job?
Consider additional study with options including a Masters or PhD, whilst you are working at Monash Health.   Workshop on 7 April at 4pm.

See flyer for details.

Monash Health Research Week, 17-19 March

Research Week is an exciting opportunity to acknowledge the achievements and showcase the ground breaking research being conducted at Monash Health and its organisational partners in the Monash Health Translation Precinct. 

Generous Prizes are being Awarded for the Poster competition and Best Young Basic and Clinical Researchers Competition.

Best Young Basic and Clinical Researchers Competition $1500 each.

Poster Presentations “Best in Theme” Poster awards 1^st Prize $500, 2^nd Prize $200.

For further information for Research Week and  for the Abstract/Poster Guidelines and Research Week Entry Form here.   Please note that that the closing date for Poster Abstracts is  Tuesday 3^rd March.   Please see flyer here.

Everyone is welcome to attend any or all of the events during this exciting week.  Registration is not required. 

Walk for Monash Children's Hospital - 1 March 2015

Help improve the lives of sick children - join us in a 5 or 10km walk at 9am on 1 March.

Register here!

World Health Summit 2015: Save the Date (Oct 11-13 in Berlin)

From October 11-13 (2015), more than 1,200 experts from over 80 countries will be meeting up for the seventh time to develop novel solutions to the world’s most pressing health challenges.

This year’s central topics are: • Climate Change and Health• Digital Health• Global Health Policy and Governance in the G7 and G20 Countries• Health in the Post-2015 Development Agenda• Healthy Aging and Prevention• Medical Education• Translational Science Registration for the World Health Summit will open on May 15 (2015). A special Early Bird Ticket will be available until July 31.    Preliminary program is here. 

Subscribe to the SCS calendar!

Did you know that SCS has a calendar of events, lectures, seminars, social events and more?

You can subscribe to our calendar, ensuring you will receive invitations and never miss another event or meeting.

Please visit our eNews and click on the +Google Calendar button to subscribe.

Event Management at Monash - new intranet site

Event Management at Monash is an intranet site that offers a range of tools designed to make it easier to organise events efficiently and make sure those events go according to plan.

It offers a step-by-step guide to running events with links to existing resources including venues, catering, marketing and as well as a range of useful templates that will assist in managing events. 

If you have any questions or comments about the site, please direct them to marc.schonhardt@monash.edu.

New name for MIMR-PHI Institute

Professors David de Kretser, Bryan Hudson and Henry Burger

MIMR-PHI Institute of Medical Research will officially be known as Hudson Institute of Medical Research, Director and CEO Professor Bryan Williams announced yesterday.

The name Hudson was chosen to recognise the shared history of both MIMR and PHI. The late Professor Bryan Hudson was the first Professor of Medicine at Monash University and the Founding Chair of the University’s Department of Medicine. He then became Founding Director of Prince Henry’s Hospital Medical Research Centre (MRC, subsequently Prince Henry’s Institute). In this role he established Prince Henry’s Hospital as the key Monash University academic teaching hospital with the first Monash MBBS medical cohort of 29 students graduating in 1966.

Monash researchers and clinicians improving outcomes for stroke patients

Professor Phan

In a landmark randomised control trial published in The New England Journal of Medicine and presented at the American Stroke Association’s International Conference last week, researchers from Royal Melbourne Hospital and their collaborators at Monash University and Monash Health have shown significantly improved outcomes for stroke patients.

Stroke is the second single greatest killer and one of the leading causes of disability amongst adults in Australia and worldwide. Eighty per cent of all strokes are caused by a blood clot blocking a blood vessel in the brain, known as an ischaemic stroke.

“We know that ischaemic stroke patients have improved outcomes when treated with a clot busting drug given intravenously within 4.5 hours of stroke onset,” said Monash University researcher and Head of Stroke at Monash Health, Professor Thanh Phan.

“However, intravenous clot-busting drugs alone may not be effective enough if there is a very large clot blocking a major brain artery,” added Professor Phan.  “And bigger clots cause bigger damage.”

“Our study has shown for the first time that an intervention known as stent-thrombectomy in addition to an intravenous clot-busting drug leads to significantly better outcomes for patients with large clot blockages.”

Hertzog receives Gates funding to investigate link between contraceptives and HIV susceptibility

MIMR-PHI Institute's Centre for Innate Immunity and Infectious Diseases Head, Professor Paul Herztog has received a $1M AUD grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to investigate the relationship between some oral contraceptives and an increased susceptibility to sexually transmitted infections (STIs), including HIV.

In 2013, his team characterised an important, naturally occurring immune cytokine in the female reproductive tract which regulates immunity to sexually transmitted infections. They had previously discovered and named it Interferon Epsilon (IFN-epsilon). This world-first discovery was published in the prestigious journal Science and it has many implications for future studies into the prevention of diseases of the female reproductive tract, including STIs.

Congratulations Dominique Cadilhac, first prize winner, Stroke Progress and Innovation Award

Dominique Cadilhac with
Marc Fischer (Editor of Stroke)
 and Professor Chris Levi
 (co-author, Uni Newcastle
and John Hunter Hospital).

Associate Professor Cadilhac awarded first prize at the 2015 International Stroke Conference of the American Heart Association in Nashville for her novel research evaluating rural stroke services.   

Full story here.

MoDERN Research Network - Seminar on 19 February

The recently formed MoDERN research network are delighted to have Assoc Prof Bonnie Sawatsky visiting from the iCORD centre and the University of British Colombia (Institute of Orthopaedics) visiting at present.  A seminar has been organised for this week.

Date: Thursday 19 February 2015

Time:  4:00pm

Venue:  Meeting Room 1, 43 Rainforest Walk (Building 64), Clayton campus

Bonnie is a biomechanist, who has done some fantastic work around wheelchair propulsion biomechanics, development of physiological measurements as well as the best mechanisms to teach children wheelchair skills so that they are able to improve participation as well as maintain their physical skills as they develop through adolescence and transition to adulthood.