Research highlights: Rib healing; HIV & Hep C, AIRmed grants

Research highlights this week:

• Analysis of bone healing in flail chest injury: do we need to fix both fractures per rib?

• Clinical presentation of risk factors of hepatitis C virus among HIV-infected patients in Bissau, Guinea-Bissau

• Professor Bruce Thompson on NHMRC, ARC and Victorian Government grants for asthma and respiratory research

 

Research highlights: brain changes in bipolar disorder; low FODMAP diet

FODMAP foods

This week's research highlights include:

• MAPrc researcher Dr Jerome Maller recently published an article which looks at volumetric, cortical thickness and white matter integrity alterations in bipolar disorder type I and II. Read more.
•  What is the long term impact of adopting a low FODMAP diet? Department of Gastroenterology research investigates the effect of dietary restriction on gut microbiota. Read more
• Beating the bloat - how dietary manipulation makes a difference. Read more

Research highlights

CCS researchers have a large output of publications. This week's highlights are:


• Let's face it: facial emotion processing is impaired in bipolar disorder.
• Hepatitis E in Australian HIV-infected patients: An under-recognised pathogen?
• Anaesthesia outside the theatre environment

 

 

Australian-first report shines spotlight on trauma care

The inaugural Australian Trauma Registry Report was released on Saturday 4 October 2014, at the Australian Trauma Society Conference. The collective effort of the nation’s 27 designated trauma centres has been revealed in the first report of the Australian Trauma Registry. The report quantifies the actual extent of the nation’s collective response to the 20,000 critically injured individuals who required treatment in an Australian trauma centre between 2010 and 2012. Australian Trauma Quality Improvement Program (AusTQIP) Co-Chair, Professor Russell Gruen, said the report offers us some vital national data for the first time. Download full report.  Also see media release and follow the hashtag #AusTrauma on Twitter.

ICU fatalities linked to after-hours discharge

Patients who are discharged from intensive care units (ICUs) after-hours have a higher chance of death than those discharged during the day, a new study has found.
Findings published today in Intensive Care Medicine, show that one in seven ICU patients continue to be discharged to general wards after-hours, and this has not changed for the past eight years. Lead researcher Dr Dashiell Gantner, from the Monash University Faculty of Medicine, Nursing and Health Science, said it remains unclear why practices have not changed. Dr Gantner is an Intensive Care Fellow at the Alfred. See 18/08/2014 Monash story.

Research highlight: prebiotic diet 'could revolutionise our health'

Catalyst ABC TV are running a two part series on gut biota and its effect on our health. Part 1 was screened last week, featuring SOBS researchers Professor Charles Mackay and Dr Alison Thorburn. This week (8 pm Thursday 21 Aug), Part 2 screens with a young, fit, active and apparently healthy man, Gideon Cordover, who trials a fibre-rich diet designed by dietitian and nutrition researcher Dr Jane Muir and prepared by Masters student Trish Veitch, from Central Clinical School. Gideon has been eating an unhealthy diet predominantly of fast food. In the words of the Catalyst promo, "changing the foods we eat could revolutionise our health and treat disease." See more about the prebiotic diet at www.med.monash.edu.au/cecs/gastro/prebiotic/.

Research highlights: investigating why bypass grafts & stents fail

Dr Anthony Dear, ACBD

Neointimal hyperplasia, an injury related vascular response, accounts for the occlusion and failure of up to 50% of bypass grafts and stents used in the treatment of coronary artery and peripheral vascular disease and constitutes a considerable health and economic burden to the community. Recent research conducted in Dr Anthony Dear's lab at the Australian Centre for Blood Diseases in collaboration with Professor Robert Widdop, Monash Department of Pharmacology, suggests that ;"epigenetic" mechanisms may be involved in the neointimal hyperplasia response.

Read more »

Research explainers: How training lowers immunity; HIV cure - still a way to go

Drs Fabien Vincent and Kim Murphy, Department of Immunology, explain how intense or prolonged exercise can lower immunity, but it's a short term effect, and can easily be counteracted with proper diet and hygiene.
https://theconversation.com/sick-of-exercise-heres-how-training-can-lower-immunity-29390

Professor Sharon Lewin, Department of Infectious Diseases, explains that "what weʼve learnt over the last few years is that both a sterilising and functional cure [for HIV] are indeed possible, and may be something we could eventually achieve." But the 'sterilising' cure, or elimination of all the HIV infected cells is "very, very difficult". The 'functional' cure is treating the disease like cancer in remission - there, but keeping a very low profile.
http://theconversation.com/we-need-a-cure-for-hiv-but-theres-still-a-long-way-to-go-29330

Prof Fabienne Mackay talks about restoration of immune function in leukaemia patients

Prof Fabienne Mackay:
Video on CLL research

Professor Fabienne Mackay talks about her team's ground breaking research published in the prestigious journal, Leukemia in April of this year. Immune defects in patients with #leukaemia prevent them from fighting the cancer. Their study looked particularly at Chronic Lymphocytic Leukaemia (CLL) patients, as they tend to die from infection, rather than the cancer itself. They found that rare, but critical, cells to fight CLL can be restored. She says, "The best feature ever made to fight cancer is the immune system."

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.

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

Research highlights: The Rubber Hand Illusion, proprioception and Body Dysmorphic Disorder

Image: Vanderbilt
University

Evidence from past research suggests that behaviours and characteristics related to body dissatisfaction may be associated with greater instability of perceptual body image, possibly due to problems in the integration of body-related multisensory information. A MAPrc team investigated whether people with body dysmorphic disorder (BDD), a condition characterised by body image disturbances, demonstrated enhanced susceptibility to the rubber hand illusion (RHI), which arises as a result of multisensory (i.e. touch and vision) integration processes when a rubber hand and the participant's hidden real hand are stimulated in synchrony.

Research highlights

Sharon Lewin on the Lancet seminar paper overviewing HIV infection

Prof Sharon Lewin video

Prof Gary Maartens, Prof Connie Celum and Prof Sharon Lewin, Department of Infectious Diseases, have published a seminar article in The Lancet, "HIV infection: epidemiology, pathogenesis, treatment, and prevention". Sharon gives an overview of the article, including her own area of pathogenesis, covering recent developments in immune activation and vaccine development. "No-one clears HIV spontaneously", she says, which is a very unusual feature for a virus. Treatments are now investigating latency, or how to 'wake up' dormant virus hidden within cells. #HIV also causes low level inflammation from immune activation, which contributes to chronic disease development. See The Lancet abstract.

Research highlights

Mechanisms of retinopathy in premature babies teased out: Immunology research

ARS cover image is by
Dr Devy Deliyanti, one
of the paper's authors

Effective preventive therapies for retinopathy of prematurity (ROP) don't exist, yet globally, there are at least 50,000 children blind from ROP. ProfessorJennifer Wilkinson-Berkain the Department of Immunology leads research efforts into understanding the problem. A recently published paper shows that one form of a particular enzyme complex called NADPH oxidase (NOX) is involved in the development of retinopathy. The research indicates that blocking the action of NOX1 prevents the damage from occurring. Reference:NADPH Oxidase, NOX1, Mediates Vascular Injury in Ischemic Retinopathy. Antioxidants & Redox Signaling. V 20, No 17, 2014 DOI: 10.1089/ars.2013.5357

Anaesthetic nitrous oxide no longer an enigma: results of international trial announced

Video of Paul Myles
describing ENIGMA-II

The ANZCA Trials Group recently announced the much anticipated results of the ENIGMA-II trial. Professor Paul Myles, Director of Anaesthesia and Perioperative Medicine at Alfred Hospital and the Monash department of the same name within Central Clinical School, presented the results at the combined plenary session at the Australian and New Zealand College of Anaesthetist (ANZCA) ASM and Royal Australian College of Surgeons (RACS) ASC on May 6, 2014. Verdict: Nitrous oxide is safe.

Read more »

New videos of CCS researchers

Recent videos of Central Clinical School researchers are:

•  Monash cancer research funded by AICR
•  Monash research improving the lives of patients with MS
• AMA Conference presentation (Prof Jeffrey Rosenfeld)
  

See below for detail of speakers and subject matter.

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.

Research highlights

Department of Gastroenterology FODMAP diet updates: Coconut water

 The Translational Nutrition research group receives many enquiries about the FODMAP content of coconut water. Recent testing has shown that coconut water, at a standard serving size of 250 ml (8.45 fluid oz), is high in FODMAPs (overall rating is red).  The serving size of 250 ml contains high amounts of the Polyol- sorbitol and moderate amounts of the Oligos-fructans.  Intake at this serving size should be avoided. See link: www.med.monash.edu/cecs/gastro/fodmap/diet-updates/coconut.html

Research highlights

Is baby health affected by taking antipsychotic medications during pregnancy?

There is a great need for safety and efficacy information about the use of antipsychotic medications in pregnancy. A Monash Alfred Psychiatry research centre (MAPrc) team have published research in PLOSOne based on data from the National Register of Antipsychotic Medications in Pregnancy, which they established in 2005. Live, healthy babies are the most common outcome following the use of antipsychotic medication in pregnancy, but the MAPrc research concludes that clinicians should be particularly mindful of neonatal problems such as respiratory distress. Reference: PLOS ONE DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0094788

40,000 km closer to understanding cancer: AICR funded research

Chris Gruar in Asia

A young Australian man, who has ridden 40,000 km around the world on a bike to raise funds for international cancer research, cycled into Melbourne on Tuesday 6 May to meet scientists at some of Melbourne’s top research institutions. See video featuring Monash researchers Professors Stephen Jane, Jamie Rossjohn, Tony Tiganos and Fabienne Mackay talking about research funded by the Association for International Cancer Research (AICR).

Read more »

Faculty of 1000 selects Department of Immunology Leukemia article

Post publication peer

review acknowledgement

Department of Immunology research on chronic lymphocytic leukaemia (CLL) has been recommended by the Faculty of 1000 as being of special significance in its field. The reviewer, Dr Philippe Saas, writes,  "these data may explain the vulnerability of CLL patients to viral infections and provide therapeutic approaches (Flt3L plus CpG ODN or anti-TNF plus anti-TGF-beta antibodies) to restore PDC number and PDC capacity to produce type I IFN in peripheral lymphoid tissues." References: