Congratulations to prize winners Chris Brooks and Laura Blair-West

Mrs Candice Rosengarten awarding
the prize plate to Chris Brooks

Congratulations to CCS students and graduates for recent wins.

Chris Brooks (Department of Surgery) won the D.S. Rosengarten Surgical Trainee Research Prize for his presentation, "Smoking increases postoperative respiratory complications and unplanned return to Theate in vascular surgical patients". Read more

Laura Blair-West (MAPrc) is a BMedSc(Hons) student investigating how social behaviour is affected with direct current stimulation. She won best poster presentation at the Australian Cognitive Science conference (seen here presenting her poster at the September 2014 AMREP EMCR conference, which she also won). Read more.

Congratulations to Amber Moore and Casey Lo, on their postgraduate degree awards!

Congratulations to Ms Amber Moore, who has been awarded the degree of Doctor of Philosophy on 2 December 2014. Her thesis was titled "Philosophical and professional issues in Chinese medicine". Amber was enrolled in the Department of Medicine, and supervised by Professor Paul Komesaroff and Dr Kylie O'Brien. Well done Amber!

Congratulations to Mr Casey Lo, who has been awarded the degree of Master of Surgery. Casey Lo is a Thoracics Fellow at St Vincent's Private Hospital and completed his degree under the supervision of Drs Silvana Marasco and Deidre Murphy.  Read more

Congratulations to our newly awarded PhD students, Kathryn Hackman and Jay Jha!

Kathryn Hackman. See more

Jay Jha. See more

Congratulations to our PhD students Kathryn Hackman (AIRmed/Medicine) and Jay Jha (BakerIDI) for the award of their PhD degrees (respectively on lung transplant in diabetic patients, and mechanisms of diabetes). Well done on completing! They are our 19th and 20th PhD students to complete this year.

Congratulations to Community Service Melburnian, Prof Jayashri Kulkarni

Congratulations to Professor Jayashri Kulkarni, Director of Monash Alfred Psychiatry research centre, who is the 2014 winner of a City of Melbourne award in the Contribution to community category. The annual Melbourne Awards celebrate the inspirational Melburnians who dedicate their time and energy for the benefit of the city and are Melbourne's highest accolade. The award was announced 15 Nov 2014. See more:

• Monash story (published 17/11/2014)
• About the award

Congratulations to PhD student Peter Tsirikis and to Prof Magdalena Plebanski

PhD student Peter Tsirikis

Congratulations to joint PhD student in the Departments of Chemical Engineering and Immunology, Peter Tsirikis, who recently received the 2015 Endeavour Australia Cheung Kong Research Fellowship. Peter is jointly supervised by Prof Magdalena Plebanski (Department of Immunology) and A/Prof Cordelia Selomulya (Department of Chemical Engineering). Read more

Professor Magdalena Plebanski and A/Prof Cordelia Selomulya, have won an ARC grant for their research on biodegradable nanoparticles. Read more

Congratulations to Fabienne Mackay, Eric Chow and Jeffrey Rosenfeld

The AMREP Research Prize 2014 for the article describing original basic research published in the journal with the highest impact factor in 2013 was awarded to Professor Fabienne Mackay (Department of Immunology, Monash University). The prize was one of a suite awarded for work presented during the Alfred Research Week 27-31 October 2014. See more.

Dr Eric Chow's poster won the Burnet Prize for Infectious Diseases Research from  those submitted for the Alfred Research Week. The poster was entitled ‘Ongoing decline in genital warts among young heterosexuals seven years after the Australian Human Papillomavirus (HPV) vaccination programme’.  See more.

Professor Jeffrey V. Rosenfeld is the new Director of the Monash Institute of Medical Engineering. See more

Prize news and congratulations

Lukas being congratulated by Professor
Jeffrey V. Rosenfeld, HOD Surgery,Alfred

Congratulations to all of our recent winners and awards:

• Lukas Sahhar wins 2014 Robert Power Surgery prize
• Bernadette Fitzgibbon wins Young Tall Poppy Science award
• Prof Jeffrey V. Rosenfeld made a Knight of Grace in the St John's Order
• AIRmed researchers NHMRC collaborative grants

Two new prizes have been created for CCS medical students:

• Hatem Salem Award for Medical Research Excellence
• Nip Thomson Award for Medical Student Clinical and Research Excellence

Emeritus Professor Hatem Salem AM was the Australian Centre for Blood Diseases founding director until his retirement at the end of 2012 and Emeritus Professor Nip Thomson AM was Head of Central Clinical School for 10 years (2000-2010).

Congratulations to NHMRC project and ECR grants for Central Clinical School researchers

Congratulations to the CCS researchers who were successful in the 2014 NHMRC funding round. Five Early Career fellowships (including one Career Development Fellowship) and five project grants were awarded with an income total of approximately $5.1M. See detail below. The national success rate declined to 14.9% as fewer projects were awarded more money. Source: NHMRC 2014 Outcomes of funding rounds.

Congratulations! First Australian to receive new MS grant

L-R: PhD student Jae Lee
with Dr Steven Petratos

Congratulations to Monash University’s Dr Steven Petratos, who is the only Australian recipient of the International Progressive MS Alliance first round of grants. Dr Petratos, Department of Medicine, is doing research into new therapies to stop progressive Multiple Sclerosis (MS), a chronic condition that worsens over time disrupting the flow of information within the brain and body. Progressive MS takes away vision, mobility, cognition, and the ability to work. See Monash story. For more photos of Steven's lab group and students, see Photo gallery.

Congratulations! Damien Saulep-Easton and Charbel Darido win travel grants

Damien Easton awarded MCCC travel grant 

Congratulations to Damien Easton on receiving the Monash Comprehensive Cancer Consortium (MCCC) travel grant. The travel grant is awarded by the Monash Comprehensive Cancer Consortium (MCCC) to fund attendance at the International Keystone Symposium on Tumor Immunology, in Canada in 2015. Damien will be presenting his work on Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia (CLL) which is the most common leukemia in adults and is currently not curable. Read more »

 

Charbel Darido awarded MCCC travel grant

Dr Charbel Darido, Department of Medicine, was awarded a 2014 MCCC travel grant to participate in the Cutaneous Biology meeting at North Stradbroke Island in Queensland. He will be giving an oral presentation about the identification of novel targets for the treatment of squamous cell carcinoma in skin and head & neck.

Congratulations

Congratulations to Rohimah Mohamud on completing her PhD! Her thesis was entitled, "Investigation of a novel subset of TNFR2 expressing regulatory T cell in lung diseases". Rohimah was based in the Department of Immunology, and was supervised by Professor Magdalena Plebanski. Her associate supervisors were Prof Robyn O'Hehir (Head of Department of Allergy, Immunology and Respiratory medicine), Prof Jennifer Rolland and Dr Charles Hardy. Well done Rohimah!

Adj Clin Assoc Prof Bruce Thompson, Department of Allergy, Immunology and Respiratory medicine was elected to the Board of thec TSANZ at the AGM held in March 2014 and has since been appointed Secretary of the Society and therefore on the senior management team with responsibility of the State Branches and special interest groups.

Award for best paper by the Australasian Gene Therapy Society

The Australasian Gene Therapy Society have awarded "Best Paper" for 2014 to Associate Professor Frank Alderuccio's paper, first authored by his PhD student Jie-Yu Chung (pictured). The paper is titled "Gene therapy delivery of Myelin Oligodendrocyte Glycoprotein (MOG) via hematopoietic stem cell transfer induces MOG-specific B cell deletion" and was published in the Journal of Immunology. Reference

Congratulations

Prof Stephen Jane congratulating

Eleanor Woolveridge on her award

Eleanor Woolveridge has received a scholarship from The Royal College of Pathologists of Australia for her project about the clinical relevance of concentrations of BAFF/APRIL heterotrimers in the serum and urine of patients diagnosed with Primary Sjogrens Syndrome (pSS). pSS is an autoimmune disease, in which lymphocytes get into salivary glands and tear ducts. The scholarship is offered annually for projects associated with pathology, jointly developed by a student and supervisor. Eleanor's supervisors were Prof Fabienne Mackay (Head, Department of Immunonology), Dr Andrew Wei and Dr Fabien Vincent. Well done Eleanor!

The Australian delegation with
Minister Andrew Robb
(Photo: David Fisher)

Central Clinical School's Rebecca Segrave recently attended the 64th Lindau Nobel Laureates Meeting in Germany, along with 37 Nobel laureates in science and 600 early career researchers from all over the world. She is featured in ABC's Science Show which can be viewed here. According to Rebecca, the week was an inspirational one.
"The week has exceeded every expectation that I had. It has been inspirational. I'd seen the motto or the slogan—inspire, educate, connect—but I didn't really identify with it, and all of those things have been true for all of us and I think that is what has made the meeting. We are inspired in a way we never imagined we would be..."

Congratulations: Microsoft Imagine Cup won by Monash students

At the award

Monash University medical students, Jarrel Seah (in Central Clinical School) and Jennifer Tang (in School of Public Health and Preventive Medicine), on Eyenaemia mobile phone app. They have just won the biggest student tech prize in the world, the Microsoft Imagine Cup.

See https://www.imaginecup.com/Content/Details/17393#?fbid=sRU4WEZdxvo

The Age, Brisbane Times, Sydney Morning Herald, The Canberra Times, and 139 other online publications.

http://www.theage.com.au/national/education/monash-students-take-top-honours-in-microsoft-imagine-cup-20140802-zzv5r.html

Congratulations

Dr Charbel Darido, Department of Medicine, has been awarded a CCS Travel Grant Round 1 for 2014 for the amount of $3000, to attend the Cold Spring Harbor Conference in NYC on PTEN Pathways and Targets.

Dr Lachlan Gray, Department of Infectious Diseases, was recently awarded a Scholarship to attend the International AIDS Society (IAS) "Towards an HIV Cure" Symposium, which will be held in conjunction with the 2014 International AIDS Conference, being held in Melbourne in July 2014. Value $1,600USD. Lachlan Gray was also recently interviewed for an article in Science Careers, part of the journal Science. See his interview.

Dr Fabien Vincent, Department of Immunology, has been nominated to attend the 2014 InterAcademy Medical Panel (IAMP) Young Physician Leaders (YPL) programme. He also attended the 2013 IAMP YPL.

Dr Tamsyn Van Rheenen, Monash Alfred Psychiatry research centre, has been awarded a travel award to present her research at the International Cognitive Neuroscience Conference, to be held in Brisbane in late July 2014.

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.

Congratulations to Brenda Button on her award of a 2014 Churchill Fellowship

Congratulations to Adjunct Clinical Associate Professor Brenda Button on her award of a 2014 Churchill Fellowship. This is a wonderful honour and tribute to Brenda’s excellence as an exceptional, innovative and committed physiotherapist. Brenda’s project is to “Gain expertise in life supportive treatment for patients bridged to lung transplant on external mechanical oxygenation (ECMO)”. Brenda joins an elite Churchill Fellowship group from AIRmed as previous recipients include Associate Professors Anne Holland and Bronwyn Levvey.

Congratulations to Dr Steven Petratos

Congratulations to Dr Steven Petratos, who has been successful in obtaining a highly competitive grant to further his research on multiple sclerosis (MS). The award was made by the US based National MS Society. It is a pilot grant for USD40,000, and the topic is "Delineating the role of the monocarboxylate transporter 8 (MCT8) in driving oligodendrocyte precursor cell maturation". MCT8 carries thyroid hormone, and when it doesn't work there's a problem with myelination, as with MS.

Congratulations

2014 Advancing Women's Research Success Grant to Maithili Sashindranath

Congratulations to Dr Maithili Sashindranath, who has been awarded a 2014 Advancing Women's Research Success Grant for $10,500 by Monash University. The funds will complement funds that she received from the Dementia Research Foundation to investigate how traumatic brain injury leads to dementia. Maithili is a postdoctoral fellow in Professor Rob Medcalf's Fibrinolysis and Gene Regulation Laboratory (ACBD). See more about the scheme.
 

Congratulations for CCS researchers for their travel grants

CCS Travel grants were awarded to five staff members to visit institutions or attend conferences for presentations and posters on their research areas. Congratulations to:

• Dr Charbel Darido, Medicine (PTEN Pathways and Targets, New York, USA)
• Dr Devy Delante, Immunology (Angiotensin Gordon Research Seminar (GRS) and Conference (GRC), Tuscany, Italy)
• Dr Sebastian Dworkin, Medicine (11th International Conference on Zebrafish Development and Genetics, Madison, Winconsin and invited seminars)
• Dr Bernadette Fitzgibbon, MAPrc (Cognitive Neuroscience Society Annual Meeting, Boston, and Harvard University on non-invasive brain stimulation)
• Dr Rebecca Segrave, MAPrc (64th Lindau Nobel Laureate meeting)

Congratulations!

Dr Elizabeth Gardiner receives Distinguished Visiting Fellowship from University of Birmingham

Dr Elizabeth Gardiner, Australian Centre for Blood Diseases (ACBD), is the recipient of a Distinguished Visiting Fellowship from the University of Birmingham, UK. She will take up this one month visiting fellowship in May, 2014 at the Centre for Cardiovascular Sciences, Institute of Biomedical Research, University of Birmingham, Edgbaston, UK. Her host is Professor Steve Watson, an international leader in the field of platelet biology. Read more »

Immunology PhD graduate Christopher Chan awarded VC Commendation for Doctoral Thesis Excellence

Dr Christopher Chan

Congratulations to Dr Christopher Chan who has received a Vice-Chancellor's Commendation for Doctoral Thesis Excellence for his PhD thesis. Christopher was a PhD student in the Department of Immunology who completed his thesis in 2013. He did his research at the Peter MacCallum Hospital under the supervision of adjunct staff members Prof Mark Smyth and Dr Daniel Andrews.  The title of Christopher's thesis was "Mechanisms of NK cell-mediated regulation of inflammation and cancer". 

Read more »