Photo of the week: 2014 AIDS schools workshop 20-24 July

Image: Kenya Education fund

This year, Melbourne is hosting the 20th International AIDS Conference (AIDS 2014), the world’s largest health conference with an expected 14,000 delegates this year. It is the first time the event is being held in Australia. Designed to unite leading scientists, health care professionals, policy makers, community organisations and people living with HIV, the theme of AIDS 2014 is 'Stepping up the Pace', emphasising a move towards an HIV/AIDS-free generation. Importantly, there has been a strong focus placed on global youth, recognising that such a massive task cannot be achieved without youth empowerment and leadership. A workshop is being held for high school students, organised by Monash, Burnet, WEHI, GTAC and YEAH!

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Events calendar

All event notices are maintained on the CCS Events calendars (including local events such as professional development and trade fairs and HDR calendars). For a consolidated view, details of events and to see all events and deadlines, see Announcements. Various Departments have their own calendars, see CCS seminar index: www.med.monash.edu.au/cecs/events/seminars.html

NOTE: Staff and Students Emergency Training and New Warden Training are held over 2 weeks starting from 11 Jun 2014.  Please see Announcements for session dates and times.

What's on for this week

Mon Jun 23	10:00 AM	►	Gastroenterology: World's biggest morning tea
	12:30 PM	►	Psychiatry Professorial Grand Round
Tue Jun 24	11:00 AM	►	Pre-submission seminar - Mr Tse-Chieh Teh
	11:30 AM	►	PhD Mid-candidature review - Mr James McFadyen
Wed Jun 25	12:30 PM	►	Immunology seminar - Mr Dean Talia
Fri Jun 27	12:30 PM	►	PhD Pre-submission review - Ms Nitasha Kumar
Tue Aug 12	10:00 AM	►	CCS 3MT competition

Major CCS events

10 July 2014 CCS Public lecture "Challenges of living well with HIV: Where to from here?"

Professor Jenny Hoy

CCS is holding its annual public lecture for 2014 on 10 July, on a viral infection that has changed our world, the Human immunodeficiency virus infection (HIV). Professor Jennifer Hoy has 30 years' experience in HIV clinical research and patient care, particularly on how HIV contributes to the increased likelihood of chronic illness such as cardiovascular disease and osteoporosis. She will describe how the lives of people with HIV transform, how her current research is changing the way doctors help people with HIV, and outline the challenges ahead. See web page with detail & RSVP link.

2014 CCS 3MT competition

2013 CCS 3MT winners:

Central Clinical School HDR students regularly compete in the "Three Minute Thesis" competition (3MT), offered in every Australian university. The CCS 3 Minute Thesis Competition is an opportunity for HDR students to convey the relevance and importance of their research in just 3 minutes.  2014 CCS 3MT will be held on Tuesday 12 August 10-11am at Lecture theatre, Level 5, Alfred Centre.  Please come along and support the participants.  All welcome.    CLICK HERE to RSVP.  Please visit the CCS 3MT competition page for participants' profiles and other information.

August 31 - De Castella Run for Mental Health 2014

MAPrc now has a generous donor who will match every dollar raised up to $30,000.  You could help them with the De Castella Run for Mental Health 2014 (Sunday 31 August), in the following ways:

1. Register as a runner
2. Fundraise by creating a fundraising account
3. Sponsor a runner
4. Donate to MAPrc

This year funds raised will go towards establishing a new PhD scholarship at the Monash Alfred Psychiatry Research Centre (MAPrc). The selected recipient will join the team of clinicians, researchers and post graduate students to help mend minds by conducting a series of high quality clinical research projects under the direct supervision of MAPrc Director, Professor Jayashri Kulkarni

Research highlights: Goat’s milk moisturizer induces goat’s cheese allergic reaction - case study

Image: Jinx!

A woman has experienced a life-threatening allergic reaction after eating goat’s cheese, which Alfred-based researchers say was triggered through repeated use of a moisturiser containing goat's milk. The case study, published this week in The Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology: In Practice, pinpoints goat’s milk as the offending ingredient, and highlights the argument for skin care preparations to be bland and to avoid "agents capable of sensitisation, especially foods."

Recent publications: Medicine, surgery, anaesthesia, cancer, neuroscience

Dworkin S, Simkin J, Darido C, Partridge DD, Georgy SR, Caddy J, Wilanowski T, Lieschke GJ, Doggett K, Heath JK, Jane SM. Grainyhead-like 3 regulation of endothelin-1 in the pharyngeal endoderm is critical for growth and development of the craniofacial skeleton. Mech Dev. 2014 Jun 7. pii: S0925-4773(14)00029-X. doi: 10.1016/j.mod.2014.05.005. [Epub ahead of print] PubMed PMID: 24915580.

Lewis PM, Smielewski P, Rosenfeld JV, Pickard JD, Czosnyka M. A Continuous Correlation Between Intracranial Pressure and Cerebral Blood Flow Velocity Reflects Cerebral Autoregulation Impairment During Intracranial Pressure Plateau Waves. Neurocrit Care. 2014 May 28. [Epub ahead of print] PubMed PMID: 24865272 full text.

Myles PS. Antifibrinolytics, aspirin and cardiac surgery: evidence, guidelines and implications for current research. Anaesth Intensive Care. 2014 May;42(3):293-7. PubMed PMID: 24847551

Myles PS. Untangling the triple low: causal inference in anesthesia research. Anesthesiology. 2014 Jul;121(1):1-3. doi: 10.1097/ALN.0000000000000282. PubMed PMID: 24936917

Oehme D, Goldschlager T, Ghosh P, Jenkin G, Rosenfeld JV. Concern over the use of recombinant bone morphogenetic protein in spinal fusion surgery: are stem cells an alternative? ANZ J Surg. 2014 May;84(5):302-3. PubMed PMID: 24877230

Szmulewicz DJ, McLean CA, Rodriguez ML, Chancellor AM, Mossman S, Lamont D, Roberts L, Storey E, Halmagyi GM. Dorsal root ganglionopathy is responsible for the sensory impairment in CANVAS. Neurology. 2014 Apr 22;82(16):1410-5. doi: 10.1212/WNL.0000000000000352. Epub 2014 Mar 28. PubMed PMID: 24682971

Tremblay CS, Curtis DJ. The clonal evolution of leukemic stem cells in T-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia. Curr Opin Hematol. 2014 Jul;21(4):320-5. doi: 10.1097/MOH.0000000000000058. PubMed PMID: 24857886

Media mentions

16/06/2014 Professor Jayashri Kulkarni, Director, MAPrc, commented on a seven year study of women who take anti psychotic medication during pregnancy.   She said that this new research confirms that most babies are born healthy, but many experience neonatal problems such as respiratory distress.

Parenthub

http://www.parenthub.com.au/news/pregnancy-news/antipsychotic-medication-pregnancy-affect-babies/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=antipsychotic-medication-pregnancy-affect-babies
18/06/2014 Prof Kulkarni commented on how on some people  are being very obsessed with sport to the point they put the rest of their lives on hold, and also talks about the lack of coverage of women's sport.

Channel 10 Melbourne

19/06/2014 Professor Robyn O'Hehir, Head, Department of Allergy, Immunology and Respiratory medicine, on their published case study about how the use of 'natural' skincream containing goat's milk sensitised a woman with atopic eczema, so much so, that eating a small quantity of goat's cheese caused an anaphylactic allergic reaction. For those of us with eczema - avoid skincream products with food ingredients (goat and cow milk, coconut milk and oil, nut and oat oil)!
Hobart Mercury, Herald Sun, Courier Mail, www.medianet.com.au

20/06/2014 Dr Jane Muir, Head of Transitional Nutrition, Department of Gastroenterology, and Professor Peter Gibson will be available for interview this week at the 47th Annual Australian Institute of Food Science and Technology Convention on the following topics:

• Separating fact from fiction – Dr. Jane Muir from Monash University will debunk the myths surrounding the emerging story of gut health.

• The gluten-free boom – Professor Peter Gibson will take on the newest trend of gluten-free foods head on, exploring whether increasing demand is driven by consumers, pseudoscience or science.

Medianet

http://medianet.com.au/releases/release-details?id=804450

 

Participants sought: Infant 'Colic' and maternal nutrition study

Image: Wikipedia

Volunteers with babies less than 8 weeks old are required for an infant ‘Colic’ study being conducted by the Department of Gastroenterology, Monash University. The study involves mothers consuming a well-balanced nutritious diet for 20 days (all food will be provided), keeping a food diary and a record of infant crying, fussing, sleeping, awake times for a total of 27 days, and providing 5 breast milk samples and 5 baby stool samples. All information is kept strictly confidential. If you have a ‘colicky’ baby less than 8 weeks of age and want to find out more information about this study, please contact Marina Iacovou on ph +61 3 99030392 or email marina.iacovou@monash.edu. This study has been reviewed and approved by the Monash Health and Human Research Ethics Committee.

Staff news

Welcome to Kirsty Williamson who has joined the Biomedical Sciences HR Services Hub as Senior HR Business Partner, replacing Felicia Beilby who has moved into the acting Lead HR Business Partner role.  Kirsty has recently emigrated from New Zealand where she worked in varied HR management roles across Organisational Development and Operational Management, most recently in NZ Government Email: kirsty.m.williamson@monash.edu Intranet page: sites.google.com/a/monash.edu/ccsintranet/services/human-resources/ccs-hr-team