Photo of the week: 10 July 2014 HIV public lecture

Slide from Professor Jenny Hoy's talk on the stigma of HIV

The 2014 CCS public lecture by Prof Jenny Hoy was held last Thursday 10 July.  Around 140 people braved the cold and wet weather to hear Professor Jenny Hoy give a superb talk about her journey through the era of HIV/AIDS. Jenny's presentation provided an excellent overview of the history of the disease, the changing nature of problems for patients as well as future directions in research and treatment. Read more below about this slide and for updates about publication of the photo gallery and video upload.

HDR seminars and Major CCS events

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

What's on for the week

Tue Jul 15     3:30 PM ► PhD Mid-candidature review - Mr Aaron McClelland
Wed Jul 16 12:30 PM ► Confirmation of PhD candidature - Ms Kirsty Wilson
Thu Jul 17  10:00 AM ► Making professional connections: LinkedIn seminar

Forthcoming events

Tue Jul 22     9:30 AM ► Animal Ethics Information Session
                   11:00 AM ► PhD Pre-submission review seminar - Ms Emma Tavender
Tue Aug 12 10:00 AM ► 2014 CCS 3 MT competition

Major CCS events

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.  

Congratulations to A/Prof Michelle Giles, Dr Fabien Vincent and Dr Lachlan Gray

Lancet letter by Young Physician Leaders Michelle Giles and Fabien Vincent

2013 YPL workshop

Associate Professor Michelle Giles (Department of Infectious Diseases and the Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology) and Dr Fabien Vincent (Rheumatologist and PhD student, Department of Immunology) have published a Correspondence letter in The Lancet, entitled: "Leadership training by the InterAcademy Medical Panel: what has it achieved in three years of the Young Physician Leaders Programme?" Both early career researchers were among the 19 selected Young Physician Leaders (YPL) participants in the world to attend the IAMP YPL Programme, representing Monash at the World Health Summit in 2013 in Berlin. See article link.

Congratulations to Dr Lachlan Gray, featured on 'Science' careers website

Dr Lachlan Gray was recently interviewed for an article in Science Careers, part of the journal Science, on his research interests and future prospects. Lachlan is a senior postdoctoral fellow at the Burnet Institute in Melbourne whose area of study is HIV. While it is no longer the death sentence it was when it was first discovered 3 decades ago, HIV is proving extremely difficult to eradicate. Lachlan is one of a small number of scientists worldwide trying to shed light on how HIV spreads to the brain, where it can cause neurocognitive disorders and establish viral reservoirs that make it resistant to the available drugs. See link for detail.

Research highlights: B cell control, 'brain fog' in coeliacs and conserving donor hearts for transplant

B cell control in the immune system: review article

B cell control mechanisms

Department of Immunology researchers have published an article reviewing the control of B cells by a group of proteins called TNF superfamily proteins. These proteins trigger necessary signals that activate or regulate the various protective functions of B cells in the immune system, and they are important to understand because B cell pathologies including some cancers or autoimmunity can occur when these functions are disrupted.

2013 CCS Annual Report now published

Central Clinical School's 2013 Annual Report is now published to the web, at
http://www.med.monash.edu.au/cecs/publications/annual-reports.html
The pdf file link for download is
http://www.med.monash.edu.au/cecs/documents/2013-ccs-annual-report.pdf (3.1 mb)
Many thanks to Hannah Pearce and Nitasha Kumar, our PhD students, for permission to use for the Annual Report cover, a photo of them doing their duty as judges of the "No-Bell" competition in the 2013 postgraduate symposium. And thanks to everyone who helped to produce and edit the content, your help as always appreciated.

Media mentions

30/06/2014 Professor Peter Gibson, Head of the Department of Gastroenterology commented on coeliac disease.  He mentioned that Non-coeliac Gluten Sensitivity (NCGS) is psychological and that it has "never been a contention we have supported."  ABC Radio, Saturday Age, Sydney Morning Herald, Canberra Times.

Participants sought: Anxiety in perimenopausal women - what factors increase it?

Women have double the risk of developing mood disturbances compared to men and perimenopause is the time of greatest vulnerability of developing mood disturbances such as anxiety. The aim of this study is to investigate factors that increase the risk of anxiety during perimenopause. If you are interested in taking part in this study for either the mood disturbance or control group, please contact Cindy Zahrany: cgzah1@student.monash.edu or Emmy Gavrilidis: 9076 6913 or emmy.gavrilidis@monash.edu

Scholarship opportunities

Applications for 2015 AMREP Honours scholarships open 1 August 2014 and close 31 October 2014.  Please CLICK HERE for further details including location, eligibility and how to apply.