Research Australia grassROOTS summer 2014

ISSUE NINE 02 A Message From The CEO 03 ACT Immunologist wins inaugural CSL Young Florey Medal

04 Research Australia Awards Dinner 06 Translating research into clinical

RESEARCH AUSTRALIA

AN ALLIANCE FOR DISCOVERIES IN HEALTH

practice – vaginal oestrogens to improve Pap smear quality 07 Griffith research hailed as paraplegic man walks again 08 Reducing the Alcohol Burden: From Landmark Research to Prevention 10 Targeting the Sweet Tooth of Cancer 11 Australia’s Unique New Stem Cell Robot Working on Preventing Blindness and Restoring Sight 12 Using Japanese and real-world science to inspire student learning 14 Cancer Patient Care – a Collaborative Approach to Reproductive Health 15 Shedding Light on Failed Research: The Philanthropic Switch 16 Ingham Institute Unveils First Stage of MRI-Linac Cancer Research Technology 17 Respiratory stars join the ranks at Lung Institute of WA 18 Research fellowship to shine light on macular degeneration risk factors 19 Sepsis survival rates prove Aussies and Kiwis know best 20 Finding the answers for progressive multiple sclerosis 21 Cup overfloweth for skin cancer research 22 Safe blood relies on research 23 Research given wings by The Repat Foundation 24 Expert committed to improving the quality of life for all people appointed at SAHMRI 25 Sax Institute’s 45 and Up study used to progress clinical research 26 St Vincent’s pioneers autologous stem cell transplants to tackle autoimmune diseases 27 Clinical trials to evaluate nonmainstream approaches to halting dementia 28 MRI Test to Predict Anti-Depressant Medication Success 29 JDRF and NHMRC continue collaboration to provide $7.5 million for new research grants 30 Overcoming brain injuries with stem cells 31 Board of Directors 31 Editor’s Corner

SUMMER 2014

Summer 2014

A Message From The CEO

Summer is here, and with nearly 30 articles in this edition of grassROOTS you won’t need to worry about what you are going to read over the festive season!

The articles cover a wide gamut of activities, from the seemingly miraculous developments in helping a paraplegic man walk again to research to ensure our blood supply remains safe, and award winning science teachers, researchers and philanthropists.

Research Australia held its infamous awards night in Sydney at Pier One in early November, and the event was a sell out. Recognition went to an early career researcher, Dr Genevieve Healy for her research on the need to regularly stand up, that is the health benefits of reducing prolonged sitting time in the workplace. I’ve procured an adjustable standing desk to see if I can’t help translate this research into practice! For the first time our awards were featured in the Australian Financial Review, who wrote an article on philanthropist Len Ainsworth, joint winner of the Macquarie Group Great Australian Philanthropy Award, with his wife Margarete, and Atlantic Philanthropy’s Chuck Feeney.

Our new Health Services Research Award, appropriately sponsored

by NSW Health, received a large number of nominations, and Professor Rob Sanson-Fisher of the Health Behavioural Group at Newcastle University was a very worthy winner.

Our most prestigious Peter Wills Medal went to Professor Alan Lopez for his work on the global burden of disease. He heroically fronted up for

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an early morning interview the day after the awards with Fran Kelly on Radio National!

You can read more about all the awardees in this edition.

Of course, we have been continuing to advocate for health and medical research and the Medical Research Future Fund these past months. As the year draws to a close there is no certainty that the legislation will be tabled in parliament this year, but our

Research Australia grassROOTS SUMMER 2014

members work, highlighted in this edition of grassRoots will help keep the importance and potential for Australian health and medical research front and central in the minds of policy makers. rof Brendan Crabb, CEO Burnet P Institute accepting Alastair Lucas’ award for Leadership & Innovation at the Research Australia Awards Dinner, with Prof Christine Bennett, Chair and Elizabeth Foley, CEO, Research Australia

Summer 2014

ACT Immunologist wins inaugural CSL Young Florey Medal Professor Carola Vinuesa from the John Curtin School of Medical Research at ANU has been awarded the inaugural CSL Young Florey Medal.

This newest prize in biomedical science recognises research excellence as well as dedication to science communication. Prof Vinuesa received the award at the Annual Dinner of the Association of Australian Medical Research Institutes (AAMRI) on the 27th October, in Canberra.

Professor Vinuesa’s work has led to the discovery of genes important for immune regulation and is paving the way for the development of new drugs to fight autoimmune diseases such as lupus, juvenile diabetes and certain cancers.

The award, which is run by the Australian Institute of Policy and Science (AIPS) and that is generously sponsored by CSL, is an expansion on the success of the biennial Florey medal that recognises lifetime contribution to the field of human health research.

The new CSL Young Florey Medal will open up this prestigious prize to biomedical scientists with significant early career research.

“I feel privileged, incredibly honoured and very grateful to AIPS and its selection committee… to CSL who have sponsored it, and to Prof Jon Sprent, a giant in Australian Immunology, who approached me and insisted on nominating me,” Prof Vinuesa said.

“This award is particularly welcome and appreciated at this point in my career, after years of very hard work and trying to balance it with raising two daughters. This is a particularly tough career for women after they hit maternity, because of its competitive nature.”

The award comes with a $25,000 prize, sponsored by CSL. Already Prof Vinuesa has decided to dedicate the majority of the prize money to kick-starting a fund that will assist fellow scientists at the John Curtin School of Medical Research (JCSMR) to return to research science after maternity leave.

This initiative to stop the attrition of women out of science has been supported by the new director at JCSMR, who has agreed to continue the fund into the future. rofessor Carola Vinuesa awarded the P inaugural CSL Young Florey Medal.

Research Australia grassROOTS SUMMER 2014

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Summer 2014

Research Australia Awards Dinner On Wednesday 5th November, the Research Australia Awards Dinner was held in Sydney to celebrate the influence of leaders who have made invaluable contributions to Australian health and medical research, be it through groundbreaking research and discovery, ongoing advocacy or generous philanthropic donations that make innovation possible.

The Awards recognised those in the categories of discovery, advocacy, philanthropy and lifetime achievement, and for the first time, also recognised achievements in health services research, reflecting the need to improve the efficiency, safety and delivery of healthcare in Australia.

Now in its 12th year, the Research Australia Awards saw a number of outstanding Australians awarded, including Founding Director of Ovarian Cancer Australia, Karen Livingstone, Australian philanthropists, Len and Margaret Ainsworth, and global health and disease expert, Professor Alan Lopez, who received the night’s most prestigious award: the Peter Wills Medal.

Elizabeth Foley, CEO and Managing Director of Research Australia, said “Research Australia and its members are proud to celebrate the nation’s leaders in health and medical research each year, with 2014’s winners certainly worthy of the recognition.

“For the past eleven years the Research Australia Awards have recognised both those who have continuously contributed to, and advocated for, the health and medical research sector in Australia.

We received an impressive number of nominations for this year’s Awards and continue to be so inspired by those put forward.

“A robust health and medical research industry is crucial to ensuring Australia continues to lead the world in terms of

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innovation and improved patient care. We congratulate all of the recipients of this years’ awards for their pioneering efforts on this front and their ongoing commitment to advancing the health and medical research industry in this country,” Ms Foley said.

The 2014 Research Australia Award recipients are: • The Peter Wills Medal: Laureate Professor Alan Lopez, Director, Global Burden of Disease Group, University of Melbourne • The Kids’ Cancer Project Lifetime Achievement Award: Mr Roy Langsford OAM and Mrs Carol Langsford OAM, Founders, Trish Multiple Sclerosis Research Foundation • The Advocacy Award: Karen Livingstone, Co-Founder, Ovarian Cancer Australia • The NSW Government Health Services Research Award: Laureate Professor Robert Sanson-Fisher, Health Behaviour Research Group, University of Newcastle

• The Macquarie Group Foundation Great Australian Philanthropy Award: Charles “Chuck” Feeney, Founding Chairman, The Atlantic Philanthropies • The Griffith University Discovery Award: Dr Genevieve Healy, Senior Research Fellow, University of Queensland • The Leadership in Corporate Giving Award: Bupa Health Foundation GSK’s prestigious Award For Research Excellence, now it its 34th year, was presented for the second time at the Research Australia Awards Dinner. The 2014 winner is Professor David Craik, a biological chemist from The University of Queensland’s Institute for Molecular Bioscience, for his discovery of the largest known family of circular proteins (or cyclotides).

• The Leadership & Innovation Award: Alastair Lucas AM, Former Chairman of The Burnet Institute, Former Chairman of the Investment Banking Division of Goldman Sachs Australia, former Research Australia Director

The Diabetes Australia Outstanding Achievement Award For Diabetes Research was awarded for the first time, with the honour going to Professor Stephen Colagiuri – Professor of Metabolic Health, Boden Institute, University of Sydney. This inaugural award is valued at $50,000 and will support Prof Colagiuri’s research activities over the coming year.

• The Macquarie Group Foundation Great Australian Philanthropy Award: Mrs Margarete Ainsworth, Supporter, Neuroscience Research Australia (NeuRA) and Mr Len Ainsworth, Supporter, Sydney Children’s Hospital

Research Australia recognises the valuable support and generosity of the Awards’ sponsors: GSK, Diabetes Australia, Griffith University, NSW Ministry of Health, Macquarie Group Foundation, The Kids’ Cancer Project and Cook Medical.

Research Australia grassROOTS SUMMER 2014

Research Australia grassROOTS SUMMER 2014

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Summer 2014 Translating research into clinical practice – vaginal oestrogens to improve Pap smear quality Clinical research by Family Planning NSW has led to a reduced need for repeat Pap smears in post-menopausal women, which if widely accepted will reduce costs for government and anxiety for women.

At present Papanicolaou (Pap) smears provide the standard test for early noncancerous changes of the cervix (neck of the womb), which, if left untreated, could develop into cervical cancer. In 2009–2010, the biennial cervical screening participation of women aged 20- to 69-year was 57%.

This includes a significant proportion of postmenopausal women.

The decline of oestrogen levels after menopause causes thinning of the covering layer of the cervix. When a sample of cells is taken for a Pap smear it is more likely to have fewer cells and maybe reported as atrophic and technically unsatisfactory necessitating a repeat smear. The predominance of immature cells on an atrophic smear can lead to difficulty in the correct identification of pre-cancerous cell

changes resulting in referral of women for costly and unnecessary colposcopic examination as a result. The lack of cells can be reversed by giving oestrogen, however the oestrogen doses used in non-randomised studies have varied as widely as 1 to 44 months of oral oestrogen and from 4 to 6 weeks of vaginal oestrogen creams. A 14-day treatment with vaginal oestrogen has been shown to reverse the atrophic changes on the cervix at the time of a colposcopic examination. These studies have resulted in the ad hoc use of vaginal oestrogens prior to taking a Pap smear in a post-menopausal woman.

In order to provide evidence based criteria for the use of vaginal oestrogens prior to a pap smear in post-menopausal women we conducted an open-label randomised

controlled trial to compare the proportion of atrophic Pap smears from postmenopausal women assigned to either (1) a regimen of one 25-microgram vaginal oestradiol tablet inserted nightly for five nights before their Pap test, (2) a single 25-microgram vaginal oestradiol tablet before the test, compared to a control group with no previous oestrogen administration. All smears were reread and classified as atrophic or nonatrophic at the conclusion of the study by a single cyto-pathologist who was unaware what the individual woman had used.

Of one hundred fifty-four (94%) of the 164 postmenopausal women who consented to the study fifty-one women received the five-night course of tablets, 50 received one tablet, and 53 were assigned to the group with no previous oestrogen use.

The risk of having an atrophic smear were significantly lower in women who used the five-night oestrogen regimen than in women who did not use oestrogen.

Moreover, using one tablet of oestrogen had no significant effect on the likelihood of an atrophic smear compared with using none.

Since the likelihood of an atrophic smear is significantly reduced for postmenopausal women who use a five-night regimen of vaginal oestrogen before their Pap test the FPNSW policy for taking Pap smears in this group of women has been amended to include a recommendation for the use of vaginal oestrogens daily for 5 days starting 7 days prior to the Pap smear appointment day. As FPNSW trains almost 100 general practitioners per year this practice is being widely disseminated. This recommendation also appears in Reproductive and Sexual Health, An Australian Clinical Practice Handbook which is widely used by GPs throughout Australia.

As a result of a simple clinically based research project which provided the evidence for improving Pap smear quality in post-menopausal women the incidence of atrophic and false positive smears, has reduced. This has led to a reduction in the need for repeat smears and colposcopic examinations in this group of women with attendant reduction in anxiety and cost both to the women and the tax payer.

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Research Australia grassROOTS SUMMER 2014

Summer 2014

Griffith research hailed as paraplegic man walks again

r Perry Cross, of the Perry Cross M Spinal Research Foundation, and Dr James St John, from Griffith University’s Eskitis Institute

Understandably delighted at the news, Professor Mackay-Sim told The Australian newspaper there was still much to do before the operation became routine. He also noted the irony of his own condition, as he is undergoing stem cell therapy for multiple myeloma.

More than 12,000 Australians are living with spinal cord injury and there is at least one new occurrence every day, but as this latest development indicates, the prospects of regeneration and recovery are much more positive.

Gold Coast man Mr Perry Cross was just 19 when he was left a C2 quadriplegic after breaking his neck playing rugby. In the 20 years since, he has dedicated himself to finding a cure for paralysis.

When Bulgarian firefighter Mr Darek Fidyka’s spinal cord was severed in a knife attack, his future seemed destined to be confined to a wheelchair. Medical science, however, had other ideas.

Four years later, 38-year-old Mr Fidyka is walking again and in no small part due to the work conducted at Griffith University’s National Centre for Adult Stem Cell Research within the Eskitis Institute for Drug Discovery.

Medical scientists are hailing the contribution by the Director of the Centre, Professor Alan Mackay-Sim, and his team.

Some are even claiming the breakthrough as more impressive than man walking on the moon.

In an operation performed in Poland recently

by Polish and British surgeons, olfactory ensheathing cells from Mr Fidyka’s nose were injected above and below where his spinal cord was severed. Nerves from his ankle were used to bridge the scar tissue.

Leading the surgery was Professor Geoffrey Raisman, from University College London’s Institute of Neurology, who consulted with Professor Mackay-Sim in Brisbane in 2012.

This followed an operation performed by a team led by Professor Mackay-Sim and the Princess Alexandra Hospital’s Dr Tim Geraghty – also an Adjunct Professor with the Griffith Health Institute – in which olfactory cells from a paraplegic Australian man were transplanted into his spinal cord.

Vital information gleaned during those operations fed insight into neural regeneration and has culminated in the revolutionary procedure and positive outcome for Mr Fidyka.

Through his Perry Cross Spinal Research Foundation, scientists at the Eskitis Institute for Drug Discovery are midway through a three-year, $150,000 research project into spinal cord injury.

“It’s been 20 years since I was injured and it was a different world back then, especially when it came to the treatment of paralysis,” says Mr Cross.

“Now, given advances in medical technology, scientific research and understanding, attitudes are changing as the possibility for recovery becomes ever more real.”

Project Leader Dr James St John and his team of researchers are working on processes by which glial cells from the olfactory mucosa – located in the upper region of the nasal cavity – are relocated to the damaged spinal cord. Glial cells are the supporting cells of the nervous system and can help nerve fibres to regenerate.

“Technology and techniques have come so far,” says Dr St John. “We’re using live cell imaging, 3D complex cell assays, in vivo spinal injury models, natural product analysis and many other processes as we seek the key to restoring movement after paralysis.”

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Summer 2014 Reducing the Alcohol Burden: From Landmark Research to Prevention A landmark burden of disease research study funded by the Foundation for Alcohol Research and Education (FARE) and released in July this year provided a clear picture of the devastating impact of alcohol in Australia.

Alcohol causes 15 deaths and hospitalises a further 430 Australians every day.

The stark and disturbing figures attracted much attention, but FARE Chief Executive Michael Thorn believes there needs to be a greater emphasis on health and medical research that focuses on prevention. The enduring legacy of such research should never be the research findings alone, but rather the translation of that knowledge into effective policies that, in the case of alcohol, reduce the death, disease and injury toll and ultimately improve the lives of all Australians.

Alcohol deAths Alcohol kills

15

AustrAliAns every dAy

Cancers (31%)

Cancers (9%)

Cardiovascular diseases (34%)

Cardiovascular diseases (6%)

Digestive diseases (11%)

Digestive diseases (5%)

Infectious and parasitic diseases (6%)

Infectious and parasitic diseases (7%)

Injuries (12%)

Injuries (32%)

Neuropsychiatric diseases (6%)

Neuropsychiatric diseases (41%)

5,554

2,087

PER YEAR

eAch yeAr

3,467

PER YEAR

NT

116

QLD

1,143 WA

592

Cancers (5%)

SA

426

NSW

1,837

ACT

73

VIC

1,214 TAS

155

Cancers (31%)

Cancers (25%)

Cancers (9%)

Cardiovascular diseases (7%) Cardiovascular diseases (34%)

Cardiovascular diseases (13%) Cardiovascular diseases (6

Digestive diseases (7%) Digestive diseases (11%)

Digestive diseases (16%) Digestive diseases (5%)

Infectious and Infectious and parasitic diseases (5%) parasitic diseases (6%)

Infectious and Infectious and parasitic diseases (4%) parasitic diseases (7%)

Injuries (47%)

Injuries (12%)

Injuries (36%)

Injuries (32%)

Neuropsychiatric diseases (30%)

Neuropsychiatric diseases (6%)

Neuropsychiatric diseases (7%)

Neuropsychiatric diseases (41%)

Gao, C., Ogeil, R.P., & Lloyd, B. (2014). Alcohol’s burden of disease in Australia.

Canberra: FARE and VicHealth in collaboration with Turning Point.

Data used in this report is from 2010

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Research Australia grassROOTS SUMMER 2014

Alcohol hospitAlisAtions Cancers (31%)

Cardiovascular diseases (34%) Digestive diseases (11%)

Alcohol hospitAlises

Infectious and parasitic diseases (6%)

430

Injuries (12%)

AustrAliAns every dAy

Neuropsychiatric diseases (6%)

157,132

55,707

101,425

PER YEAR

eAch yeAr

PER YEAR

NT

2,708

QLD

33,974 WA

17,448 Cancers (31%)

SA

10,560

Cardiovascular diseases (34%)

NSW

48,152 ACT

Digestive diseases (11%) Infectious and parasitic diseases (6%) Injuries (12%) Neuropsychiatric diseases (6%)

2,273 VIC

39,381 TAS

2,636

Cancers (9%)

Cancers (5%)

Cardiovascular diseases (6%)

Cardiovascular diseases (7%)

Digestive diseases (5%)

Digestive diseases (7%)

Infectious and parasitic diseases (7%)

Infectious and parasitic diseases (5%)

Injuries (32%)

Injuries (47%)

Neuropsychiatric diseases (41%)

Neuropsychiatric diseases (30%)

Gao, C., Ogeil, R.P., & Lloyd, B. (2014). Alcohol’s burden of disease in Australia.

Canberra: FARE and VicHealth in collaboration with Turning Point.

Data used in this report is from 2010

The research, Alcohol’s Burden of Disease in Australia funded by FARE and VicHealth, found 5,554 deaths and 157,132 hospitalisations were caused by alcohol in 2010, with the number of deaths increasing by 62 per cent since the study was last Cancers (5%) undertaken a decade ago.

Cardiovascular diseases (7%)

For men, injuries accounted for more than Digestive diseases (7%) one in three (36%) alcohol-related deaths, Infectious and while cancer and digestive diseases parasitic diseases (5%) caused 25 and 16 per cent, respectively.

Injuries (47%) For women, one in three alcohol-related Neuropsychiatric deaths were due to heart disease diseases (30%) (34%), followed by cancers (31%) and injuries (12%).

Dr Belinda Lloyd, Head of Population Health Research at Turning Point, says Burden of Disease (BoD) analyses provide a powerful method to estimate the number of deaths, hospitalisations and Disability Adjusted Life Years (DALYs) due to different risk factors.

“Such studies combine estimates of exposure to a risk factor (e.g. the consumption of alcohol) with the relative risk of harm in a number of disease, illness and injury categories which may

be classified as acute (e.g. motor vehicle accidents) or chronic (e.g. cancers). In this way, BoD studies paint a picture about the relative amounts of harm that are attributable to different risk factors.”

FARE has long collaborated with a range of universities and institutes to conduct leading alcohol research in Australia with the research funding provided by FARE assisting in strengthening the evidencebase and in building the alcohol and research capability in Australia.

Cancers (25%) The first Global BoD project was conducted by the World Health Cardiovascular diseases (13%) Organization in 1990 and quantified the Michael Thorn says in the field of alcohol Digestive diseases (16%) health effects of 100 diseases and injuries misuse, we must never lose sight of the Infectious and for eight regions of the world.parasitic diseases (4%) end goal: the prevention of harms.

Injuries (36%) Michael Thorn says that a complete Neuropsychiatric understanding of how many deaths are diseases (7%) caused by alcohol, together with an understanding of alcohol’s contribution to disease and injury, is crucial in informing public policy and ensuring that governments set their public health priorities accordingly.

“Too often preventive research is overshadowed by clinical and treatment focused medical research, but given the significant impact Non Communicable Diseases have on the health care system and the Australian community, I believe there needs to be a far greater focus on health prevention research.”

“A decade ago alcohol was responsible for 3,430 deaths. Now that figure stands at 5,554. It’s disturbing, and disappointing, but armed with the detailed knowledge from this valuable research, the bigger challenge is to translate these findings into meaningful policy action and effective measures that save lives and reduce this heavy toll.”

View the full Alcohol’s burden of disease in Australia report at: http://www.fare.org. au/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/Alcoholsburden-of-disease-in-Australia-FINAL.pdf You can find out more about FARE and its research at www.fare.org.au

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Summer 2014

Targeting the Sweet Tooth of Cancer In Canberra, a team of scientists and haematologists is starting a clinical trial of repurposing an existing safe drug that reduces lactic acid production, for the treatment of blood cancers for the first time.

It was first recognised in the 1930s that cancer cells use glucose differently to normal cells. Normal cells use oxygen to metabolise glucose for energy production, whereas cancer cells preferentially metabolise glucose for the production of cellular building blocks and antioxidant protection pathways. These pathways require less oxygen and result in the accumulation of lactic acid. Other aspects of metabolism in cancer cells also differ from normal tissues, and these differences are yet to be exploited for therapeutic purposes.

Dr Anneke Blackburn, leader of the Cancer Metabolism and Genetics Group at the John Curtin School of Medical Research, Australian National University is studying the effect of redirecting cancer metabolism on the growth and death of cancer cells, focusing on the drug dichloroacetate.

Dichloroacetate (DCA) is an old drug that inhibits the metabolism of glucose to lactic acid. This drug has been used for many years in patients with a rare metabolic disorder to reduce their blood lactic acid levels and so it is known to be safe and have minimal side effects, and therefore has potential to move rapidly into the clinic for use in cancer treatment. “We have demonstrated that DCA is able to stop the growth of invasive breast cancer cells both

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in vitro and in vivo in animal models”, says Dr Blackburn. While dichloroacetate alone does not kill breast cancer cells, taking away the drive to grow makes the cells more likely to die when co-treated with existing anticancer drugs, especially those that target a second aspect of metabolism. This could mean the dose of current anti-cancer drugs could be lowered, thus reducing toxic side effects but without loss of effectiveness.

The metabolic shift that DCA is targeting, known as the glycolytic phenotype or Warburg effect, is widespread across many cancer types. So while the research into the effects of DCA in breast cancer are ongoing, a collaboration between Dr Blackburn and Dr James D’Rozario at the Department of Haematology, The Canberra Hospital, has lead to the exciting development of a clinical trial of DCA in multiple myeloma, an incurable cancer of antibody-producing white blood cells. The trial is due to commence in January, 2015.

The antibody secreted by the cancer cells can be measured in the blood of patients as a readout of how much cancer is present. “This gives us a very convenient

way of measuring disease stability / progress and hopefully will allow us to assess if DCA can be helpful in this cancer in quite a short time frame.” DCA will be given to patients with stable disease in combination with their existing therapies for 3 months. Two small trials of DCA in brain cancers have been published from other research groups, but this Canberra-based trial will be the first clinical trial of DCA in a blood cancer in the world.

Metabolism and cancer cells are complex, and there are many different ways that cancer cells can change their metabolism.

One of the tasks for Dr Blackburn’s team is to understand the factors that can make cancer cells sensitive to DCA. “If we can understand which patients to select for treatment, DCA may be a very cost-effective, low toxicity route to improving cancer therapy across many cancer types.” A grant from the Cancer Council ACT is supporting these laboratory studies in myeloma cells to be performed in parallel to the clinical trial studies, which are supported by The Canberra Hospital Private Practice Trust Fund.

r Blackburn has been awarded the inaugural Tony Ayers prize from the D College of Medicine, Biology and Environment at the ANU, for excellence in research in translational medicine.

Research Australia grassROOTS SUMMER 2014

Australia’s Unique New Stem Summer Cell 2014 Robot Working on Preventing Blindness and Restoring Sight

Research into treatments to prevent blindness and restore sight will be accelerated through the arrival of an Australian-first stem cell robot thanks to a generous donation by Joan and Peter Clemenger.

Joan and Peter Clemenger are Honorary Governors of the Centre for Eye Research Australia (CERA) and their donation reflects a charitable history of giving to eye research.

Stem cells are created using cells (called ‘fibroblasts’) taken from skin samples.

CERA researchers then produce eye cells for disease modelling which allow for new drug therapies to be developed.

The robot can tirelessly maintain the stem cells required for the study of macular degeneration, glaucoma, and other eye diseases leading to vision loss.

-R: Dr Alex Hewitt, Hon Ian Macfarlane L MP, Peter Clemenger and Dr Alice Pebay.

The Australian Government’s Minister for Industry, the Honorable Ian Macfarlane MP, joined Peter Clemenger AM, Principal Investigator Neuroregeneration, Dr Alice Pébay, and Principal Investigator Clinical Genetics, Dr Alex Hewitt, to switch on the robot in September.

Dr Hewitt said that with the push of a button the stem cell robot is now a powerful ally in the fight against eye disease.

“Thanks to the kind donation from Mr and Mrs Clemenger, we can now get working on studying patient-specific, individualised stem cells from a larger number of people, which will certainly expedite our research and shorten the time required for clinical translation,” Dr Hewitt said.

“We can make a real impact as we work toward our goal of preventing blindness and restoring sight.”

One of the first projects to use the robot will be comparing genes in the cells of glaucoma patients with samples from healthy patients with the aim of determining why optic nerves die in glaucoma.

Mr Clemenger, who pressed the button that set the robot in motion, said he was proud to be involved with CERA and wished researchers the best of luck with their new automated research assistant.

“Hopefully this will make real progress to eliminating eye disease and blindness in my lifetime, as well as encouraging other researchers from around the world to collaborate with CERA here in Melbourne using this world class facility,” Mr Clemenger said.

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Summer 2014

Using Japanese and real-world science to inspire student learning

The Prime Minister’s Prizes for Excellence in Science Teaching go to teachers from Canberra and Adelaide.

The Australian Science Teachers Association (ASTA) congratulates Brian Schiller and Geoff McNamara, recipients of the 2014 Prime Minister’s Prizes for Excellence in Science Teaching, on behalf of the teaching community.

Last night Geoff and Brian received their $50,000 prizes from the Prime Minister, the Hon Tony Abbott, at a dinner in the Great Hall of Parliament House, Canberra. The prize money is shared with their schools.

Brian Schiller has integrated play, science and languages at Seacliff Primary School in Adelaide. He nurtures creativity in the classroom through student-initiated investigations, where the students bring the questions and Brian guides them in setting up investigations to get the answers.

Canberra high school teacher Geoff McNamara has created a hothouse of science learning. From dinosaurs to galaxies, weather stations to genetics, his classes explore the impact of science in daily life.

“Both of these teachers step outside the norm with what they bring to science teaching,” says Robyn Aitken, president of the Australian Science Teachers Association.

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rime Minister’s Prizes for Science/ P WildBear: Geoff McNamara

“They go above and beyond what many teachers do – their passion and enthusiasm for science is outstanding.”

Prime Minister’s Science Prizes for Excellence in Science Teaching in Primary Schools At Seacliff Primary School in Adelaide’s south, Brian Schiller’s students are describing states of matter, mixing of materials, and products of chemical reactions—in Japanese.

“Science can be a basis for teaching many different subjects, such as language, music, numeracy, reading and writing,” he says. “Students can play and create, and relate their learning to the world around them.

“Brian brings a wealth of knowledge and experience to his teaching,” says Robyn Aitken, president of the Australian Science Teachers Association.

“He manages to weave a rich tapestry of learning by merging science and Japanese, encouraging higher order thinking skills in his primary students.”

Research Australia grassROOTS SUMMER 2014

Prime Minister’s Science Prizes for Excellence in Science Teaching in Secondary Schools At Melrose High School in Canberra, science teacher Geoff McNamara has created a hothouse of science learning— complete with a seismometer, GPS antenna, and weather station, each

transmitting real-time data straight into the classroom. He also coordinates regular visits from practising scientists, and science field trips.

“We all need science literacy to navigate the complexity of modern world,” he says. So he reaches out to each student’s interests—from genetics to driving to cosmology— to demonstrate the inevitable relevance of science.

“Geoff fosters connections between students and scientists to make science relevant,” says Robyn Aitken, president of the Australian Science Teachers Association. “He uses real-science to engage the disengaged—his students want to spend time in his learning environment.” rime Minister’s Prizes for Science/ P WildBear: Brian Schillers

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Summer 2014

Cancer Patient Care – a Collaborative Approach to Reproductive Health For a number of people, starting a family is a priority in life. It takes precedence over all other facets of everyday duties and can consume both men and women in the hope of securing a successful conception. But what happens when a diagnosis of cancer is the result you get instead of a couple of lines on a pregnancy test. How do you take this negative and turn it into a positive?

When men and women of reproductive age are looking to take the path to parenthood learn that they are faced with their own mortality, it has been said that the desire to procreate is often intensified. So much so that it is put on a pedestal and turned into a goal to achieve. What you don’t see though are the effects that cancer and its associated treatments have on fertility. They are numerous and complex and often not at the forefront of the treating oncologist or the patient’s mind at the time of diagnosis but it is an important factor to consider, especially if fertility is a high priority for the patient.

According to an Australian study measuring fertility-related knowledge in young women with breast cancer, many patients were unaware of the key facts regarding the impact of breast cancer treatments on fertility and potential fertility preserving options. Furthermore, low knowledge was associated with increased decisional conflict, which is likely to undermine the quality of decision making. These findings suggested that targeted and timely fertility information may reduce decisional conflict and increase informed choice.

With all this in mind, research recommends a collaborative approach to providing fertility preservation options to patients undergoing treatment for cancer.

The methodology encompasses the cooperation of multidisciplinary health-care professionals contributing to preserving the fertility of cancer patients, through improved patient communication and support, specialist fertility knowledge and ongoing research.

With a team of specialist clinicians, research scientists and product experts, Cook Medical, is contributing to the reproductive health industry via a multi-faceted approach. Dedication to design & manufacture of specialist medical solutions, revolutionary research and ongoing physician collaboration, means continued delivery of advanced products and knowledge in the field of Reproductive Health.

A retrospective study of cancer survivors under the age of 50 revealed that while infertility was a significant concern for them at the time of their diagnosis, they recognised the lack of consideration by medical professionals to adequately address these concerns.

As an industry leader with a primary focus on patient care and an organisation at the forefront of research & innovation in Assisted Reproductive Technology (ART), Cook Medical recently merged its obstetrics, gynecology and ART product lines, to enhance patient care for women and men throughout their reproductive lives.

By collaborating with scientists, researchers and a host of others in the reproductive field, Cook Medical is assisting in finding solutions to aid the reproductive future of those going through cancer treatments.

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Better diagnostics, early detection and improved treatments has seen cancer survival improve significantly in recent years (from 47% to 66% between 1982 and 2010), according to Australian Cancer Council statistics. It would therefore seem particularly important that fertility be discussed as a primary consideration for cancer patients who have not yet commenced or completed their family planning.

Similarly with the progression of cancer related technologies, ART has advanced significantly through developments of in vitro fertilisation (IVF) and intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI) which has revolutionised the treatment of male-factor infertility.

Consequently, patients can only benefit from the collaborative efforts of companies like Cook Medical and other dedicated medical specialists who are committed to providing exceptional patient care and innovative solutions.

Summer 2014

Shedding Light on Failed Research: The Philanthropic Switch Thomas Edison once said of his attempts to make a light bulb, “I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.” So what can we learn from “failed” attempts in brain cancer research? And how can philanthropy shine a light?

Contrary to popular belief, failure is common amongst research endeavours.

The 10,000 ways that things don’t work for one person, may be the missing pieces for others. Therefore it’s vital that all results are consistently shared, so we may all learn from them.

Bringing negative results out of the dark Sharing ‘failures’ in medical research is particularly critical. Although always disappointing, failures provide insight into the way diseases work. A recent report by Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America noted that of the numerous treatments tested for cancer, only three new brain cancer drugs were found to be effective, whilst 75 were unsuccessful in the development process.

If you only publish successes, you only get a very small part of the story.

The most obvious advantage to sharing negative results is the reduction of duplication, leading to accelerated discovery, greater transparency and open collaboration.

There has been a recent push by various organisations – including not for profits – to publish all clinical trial and failed research results. The AllTrials campaign, supported largely by not for profits, is calling for all past and future clinical trials to be registered and report their full method and results, which would add significantly to the general body of scientific knowledge.

But failed trials do not have the market value of successful ones, so there is little incentive for business to push for the publication of failures. It is similarly difficult for charities to acknowledge that projects they have funded are unsuccessful. However philanthropic organisations can spearhead this change. It is essential for charities to stand up and acknowledge that funding a promising study that fails is different than failing in your funding.

As there is little incentive for drug companies to trial off-patent drugs, philanthropy also has

hedding light on brain S cancer research

an important role in making drugs attractive for companies to market for a new indication, like brain cancer.

Chair of the Cure Brain Cancer Neurooncology Group, Associate Professor Kerrie McDonald, agrees that all trial information is important. She says there are “exceptional” patients in every trial – even failures – and these could be the key pieces of the puzzle when it comes to understanding brain cancer and other diseases.

The challenges Publication of negative results is not without challenges. The current system is set up to reward positive conclusions.

Researchers’ reputations and jobs hinge on the publications they produce and the journals they publish in. Increasingly, this means that negative results are published less often. Journals like the Journal of Negative Results in Biomedicine are helping to change this, but until research is valued, regardless of result, researchers will look to publish their successes.

As publication of all results becomes more common the amount of data will grow. The recent initiative by the National Institute of Health, Big Data to Knowledge (BD2K), will help to tackle these big data issues through the collection, analysis and dissemination of worldwide data.

Towards the light Failures can be difficult to embrace.

However, if we take on the attitudes of people like Edison, we can make failures small successes in their own right.

Philanthropic involvement is key to ensuring consistent publication of negative results, which reduces the potential for duplication, creates new lines of investigation and can lead to old drugs being used in new ways.

There are challenges to overcome, but as Cure Brain Cancer’s founder Associate Professor Charlie Teo has said, do not make the mistake of thinking obstacles in your path are dead ends, when in fact they are the building blocks you can climb to see further.

If used appropriately, these failures may even lead to a ‘light bulb moment’ for diseases like brain cancer.

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Summer 2014 Ingham Institute Unveils First Stage of MRI-Linac Cancer Research Technology The Ingham Institute for Applied Medical Research unveiled its much-awaited flagship MRI-Linac cancer research technology at a special event in the Institute’s high-tech, purpose built Research Bunker at Sydney’s Liverpool Hospital on 18 September.

Called ‘An Evening in the Bunker’, the exclusive event was attended by some of Australia’s top corporates and generous philanthropists including the Ingham family, Perich Group, PwC and included a special guest appearance from the Institute’s Ambassador and Channel 9 Today Show Co-Host Lisa Wilkinson.

A flagship project that will be a first for Australia and one of only three in the world, the Ingham Institute’s MRI-Linac will combine an MRI scanner with a Linear Accelerator for research into cancer therapy and treatment. Housed in the Ingham Institute’s high-tech Research Bunker, the new technology is set to improve the precision and accuracy of radiotherapy.

“Radiation treatments for cancer must take into account changes that can occur to the location and shape of tumours, which move as a result of breathing, swallowing and other normal body changes. The MRI-Linac will enable us to target the tumour with the radiation beam much more accurately in real-time, and have greater control over the radiation dose,” explained Professor Michael Barton OAM, Ingham Institute Research Director and Chief Investigator of the project.

The Ingham Institute’s MRI-Linac project is progressing rapidly with the first half of the technology, the Linac, installed and assembled and a purpose-built MRI scanner due to arrive in mid 2015. Once the MRI-Linac is completed and ‘turned on’ the Ingham Institute’s team of highly specialised cancer researchers will begin testing and clinical trials, with a view to use the MRI-Linac as a new mode of treatment for cancer patients in the future.

The Ingham Institute MRI-Linac team includes some of the best medical minds in the world including Chief Investigator Professor Paul Keall, who hails from Stanford University in the USA, Senior MR Physicist Dr Gary Liney who was recruited from the UK, and Professor Stuart Crozier from the University of Queensland who is recognised as one of the world’s leading innovators in MRI. “The Ingham Institute’s team of MRILinac scientists and researchers have been working on this project for many years so it’s incredible to see it starting to come to fruition,” continued Professor Barton. “Cancer still continues to be the biggest killer in Australia so it’s wonderful to be involved in such a milestone project that is set to revolutionise cancer

( left to right): Ingham Institute Research Director Professor Michael Barton OAM, Ingham Institute Ambassador and Channel 9 Today Show Co-Host Lisa Wilkinson, Ingham Institute Chairman Terry Goldacre and MRI-Linac Chief Investigator Professor Paul Keall.

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research and make a positive impact on current statistics.”

“Once the MRI-Linac is operational it will set a new benchmark for cancer treatment in Australia, with the potential to dramatically reduce side effects and improve cancer treatment outcomes for over half of Australian cancer patients,” continued Professor Barton.

Ingham Institute Ambassador and Channel 9 Today Show Co-Host Lisa Wilkinson said that it was fantastic to see the Ingham Institute flourishing with such an exciting new development to help combat cancer in Australia.

“Cancer awareness and improving the lives and treatment procedures of Australians suffering from it is something I’m very passionate about” said Ms Wilkinson. “The Ingham Institute’s MRI-Linac technology is new and progressive and has the potential to improve treatment, save lives and reduce the number of people suffering from this awful disease. Congratulations to all of the Ingham Institute researchers involved in this milestone project.”

For a detailed overview of how the MRILinac will revolutionise cancer treatment in Australia, check out the MRI-Linac animation on the Ingham Institute’s YouTube Channel: http://www.youtube. com/inghaminstitute.

Summer 2014

Respiratory stars join the ranks at Lung Institute of WA

The Lung Institute of WA, based in Perth will expand its areas of research with the appointment of two internationally recognised respiratory researchers in keeping with the Institute’s mission to bring together world class researchers to find answers for people with respiratory conditions.

Winthrop Professor Peter Eastwood will become the first Deputy Director of the Institute. Prof Eastwood is Director of UWA’s Centre for Sleep Research in the School of Anatomy, Physiology & Human Biology and is the first researcher for sleep related breathing disorders to join the Institute.

Peter is currently Editor-In-Chief of the journal Respirology, the major Respiratory Medicine Journal for the Asia-Pacific Region, a National Health and Medical Research Council Senior Research Fellow at the West Australian Sleep Disorders Research Institute, and Scientific Director of the West Australian Pregnancy Cohort (Raine) Study. Peter has also just been awarded a NHMRC Project Grant for $1.4 million for a research study, ‘Prevalence, phenotype and genotype of common sleep disorders’.

The Institute has also appointed Winthrop Professor Gary Lee as its first Clinical Director. Prof Lee is Professor of Respiratory Medicine at the University of Western Australia, as well the Head of the Respiratory Department at Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital. Prof Lee currently heads

up the Pleural Medicine Unit at the Lung Institute of WA, and will build on his track record of translational research for patients with pleural cancers and infection.

The Institute has undergone a major strategic review this year under the new direction of Winthrop Professor Geoff Laurent. Prof Laurent’s appointment was the first of ongoing positive change for the Institute. The review explores a more focused view to increase the collaborative research in Western Australia towards winning larger and more significant grants.

Together, says Prof Laurent, we have a better chance of understanding respiratory conditions and making real changes to the treatment of people living with these diseases.

Prof Laurent has recently returned to Perth after 30 years working in respiratory research in London, where he was the Director for the Centre of Respiratory Research and Head of Department of Internal Medicine.

“When I came back to Australia I could see the untapped potential for respiratory clinicians and researchers to work together more,” said Prof Laurent. “Western

Australia is already one of the strongest areas world wide for lung research, but by working together and recruiting future leaders, we can make sure that Western Australia remains preeminent in lung research and patient care.”

“Gary and Peter are both leaders in their areas, they’ve both come to Perth after stellar careers and have established leading research programmes. They are already playing key roles in our new direction and making waves in the respiratory community in WA on behalf of the Institute”.

Prof Peter Eastwood said: “It’s hugely exciting for both Gary and myself to be on board, helping to drive the Lung Institute of WA’s basic and clinical research programmes towards bettering the lives of everyone living with a respiratory condition.

We are keen to work on new ways to engage with the local medical and scientific community in WA to improve translational research and patient outcomes.”

ung Institute of WA Director Prof L Geoff Laurent welcomes new Clinical Director Prof Gary Lee and new Deputy Director Prof Peter Eastwood.

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Summer 2014 Research fellowship to shine light on macular degeneration risk factors

ssociate Professor Bamini Gopinath, A the recipient of the Blackmores Dr Beaumont Research Fellowship

population from which only a few people have late stage disease,” she says.

On World Sight Day (9 October 2014) the Macular Disease Foundation Australia announced Associate Professor Bamini Gopinath as the successful recipient of the third Blackmores Dr Paul Beaumont Research Fellowship.

The fellowship will fund research to establish a dietary and lifestyle risk factor profile of a large group of patients presenting with late age-related macular degeneration.

Macular degeneration is the leading cause of blindness and severe vision loss in Australia primarily affecting older Australians.

Blackmores Institute, Blackmore Foundation and Macular Disease Foundation Australia support the fellowship of $100,000 over two years as one of the grants under the Macular Disease Foundation Australia’s research program.

“Blackmores Institute is proud to be supporting the work of Dr Gopinath as we believe this research will significantly contribute to the understanding of how macular degeneration can be prevented and managed for those living with this chronic disease,” says Institute Director Dr Lesley Braun.

Dr Gopinath is a Principal Research Fellow at the Centre for Vision Research, Westmead Millennium Institute and will be working with Professor Paul Mitchell, one of the world’s leading experts in macular degeneration.

The proposed research will involve a detailed analysis of diet and lifestyle data

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currently being collected from 600 people with late stage age-related macular degeneration and will link with a major study being conducted by Professor Mitchell funded by the Macular Disease Foundation Australia.

This project offers a unique opportunity to characterise the smoking, nutritional (omega-3 fatty acids, vegetables, antioxidant supplement use), and physical activity risk-profile at both baseline and 1-year later that may predict the most severe forms of age-related macular degeneration. In addition, the study will examine lifestyle risk factors in relation to age of onset, visual acuity changes, lesion size, and first/second eye involvement.

“Dr Gopinath has a very impressive track record with over 100 published articles in the last five years, more than half on which she was the lead author,” says Macular Disease Foundation Australia CEO Julie Heraghty.

“This project is unique in that it analyses the diet and lifestyle habits of a large number of people with existing late stage disease.

Most other studies in this field look at a large

Research Australia grassROOTS SUMMER 2014

“A key study outcome would be more detailed understanding of lifestyle risk factors that may assist to identify and change at-risk behaviour, and help in implementing preventive strategies at a timely point in the disease course.

Moreover, it will build on existing research infrastructure, and be remarkably efficient in providing quality data which could reduce the burden of age-related macular degeneration,” says Dr Gopinath.

The Macular Disease Foundation Australia Research Grants Program was launched in 2011 to fulfil the Foundation’s objective to support research to reduce the incidence and impact of macular degeneration and ultimately to find a cure for this chronic disease. Since the program launch, over $1.4 million has been committed to world leading Australian researchers.

The Foundation’s grants and fellowships make significant contributions to Australian medical, psychosocial and nutritional research into macular degeneration. They are awarded following rigorous evaluation, based largely on the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) process, along with international peer review, to ensure that the successful applicants meet the highest standards.

The Blackmores Dr Paul Beaumont Research Fellowship is awarded to researchers based in eligible Australian institutions to pursue research into nutritional and/or lifestyle aspects of macular degeneration, consistent with the mission of the Foundation to reduce the incidence and impact of macular degeneration and is named in recognition of the Foundation’s Founding Director, Dr Paul Beaumont.

For more information contact the Macular Disease Foundation Australia on 1800 111 709 or visit www.mdfoundation.com.au

Summer 2014

Sepsis survival rates prove Aussies and Kiwis know best New research suggests treatment in Australia and New Zealand for patients with sepsis is the best in the world.

The large-scale six-year study, led by the Australian and New Zealand Intensive Care Research Centre at Monash University, divided 1600 patients into two groups, who were admitted to emergency care with early stage sepsis from across more than 40 hospitals.

The first group of 796 patients received Early Goal Directed Therapy (EGDT), an aggressive treatment not currently used in Australia and New Zealand, which inserts a catheter into the jugular vein to monitor oxygen levels in the blood returning from the body to the heart.

The second group of 804 patients received the usual course of standard care given in Australia and New Zealand – a combination of rapid specialist-led care, powerful and immediate antibiotics and rapid resuscitation in either Emergency Departments or Intensive Care Units.

Previous studies found mortality rates for sepsis were as high as forty-six per cent, but were lowered to 30 per cent if EGDT was also used. Subsequently the therapy has been recommended globally and is endorsed by the Surviving Sepsis Campaign.

In contrast, the new study found that, in Australia and New Zealand, hospital mortality rates for both groups were close to 15 per cent – the lowest ever reported for this life threatening condition.

The Monash-led research, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, sheds doubt on the reported effectiveness of EGDT

because researchers found it did not make any noticeable difference to survival rates.

One of the lead researchers, Professor Rinaldo Bellomo, from the Australian and New Zealand Intensive Care Research Centre at Monash University’s School of Public Health and Preventive Medicine said one of the reasons for the high survival rates could be down to Australia and New Zealand’s healthcare systems.

“Australia and New Zealand have one of the longest and most scrutinised joint training programs in the world for doctors and nurses working in emergency and intensive care. Intensive care units routinely have one highly trained specialist nurse for each patient to maximise level of care and minimise cross infection and healthcare professionals have a reputation for collaboration and team work,” he said.

“We don’t know if these factors are responsible for the high survival rates, our next step is to carry out further work to determine this,” Professor Bellomo said.

Sepsis, a fast-moving bloodstream infection that kills millions of people globally every year, is caused by the immune system’s response to serious infection.

In extreme cases, the body begins to shut down resulting in heart, lung, kidney and other organ failure. To combat the ssociate Professor Sandra Peake, A Chief Investigator and Ms Tricia Williams are picture beside the first patient enrolled into the study.

infection early diagnosis and intensive care are critical.

Introduced in 2001, EGDT is reported to have cut sepsis death rates by as much as a third.

Used in many countries as a key strategy for septic shock admitted to emergency departments, a catheter is inserted into the jugular vein and slid near to the heart to monitor the level of oxygen in the blood. If oxygen levels are too low, transfusions are used to elevate it and drugs administered to make the heart beat faster Professor Bellomo said the findings suggest it is time to review global sepsis treatment guidelines.

“Sepsis survival rates are one of the highest in Australia and New Zealand. We believe this is because of the standard of care, rather than the use of EDGT, an expensive and invasive procedure, which has never been widely used in either country,” he said.

“In our study, mortality rates for both groups were the same, it was very clear that EDGT does not increase your chances of survival. Our study proves it is neither needed or beneficial,” Professor Bellomo said.

The NHMRC-funded, Alfred Foundationsupported study led by Monash University involved researchers from every health care jurisdiction in Australia and New Zealand.

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Summer 2014

Finding the answers for progressive multiple sclerosis For the first time, MS organisations around the globe, including MS Research Australia, are funding research together, without considering geography, in order to tackle the greatest challenge in MS research – progressive MS. MS Research Australia has joined MS organisations in the USA, UK, Italy, Denmark, Spain, and Canada in a global alliance to end progressive multiple sclerosis (MS). The International Progressive MS Alliance, coordinated by the MS International Federation, is the most ambitious collaborative project the global MS movement has ever embarked upon, with MS Research Australia pledging A$1.1 million over the next 3 years.

MS Research Australia’s commitment to the Alliance has been made largely possible by their partners, the community fundraising initiative Foundation 5 Million Plus (F5m+), and other important donations from its stakeholders and donors.

Mike Hemingway, a person with MS and the Chairman of the F5m+ funds allocation committee, said the committee was unanimous in its endorsement of funding the first year’s subscription to the Alliance on behalf of MS Research Australia. ‘This is such an important project as developments in the area of understanding progressive MS have been slow and, given that many people with MS will end up with a form of progressive MS, it is vital that more priority is given to understanding and treatment.’

News of MS Research Australia’s appointment to the Alliance coincides with the announcement of the first round of 22 research grants to key investigators. 195 applications from 22 different countries were received and amongst the successful grants is Australian MS researcher Dr Steven Petratos from Monash University who has received funding to continue his novel exploration into methods to prevent the degeneration of nerve fibres in MS, an important area of research which could prevent the accumulation of disability that occurs in progressive MS. Over the coming years the Alliance will establish further grant rounds to fund the best projects and stimulate a global collaborative approach that targets the key hurdles that currently impede advances in progressive MS research.

A$31 million (€22 million) invested to fast-track scientific discovery and change the lives of millions

MS is a chronic, often disabling disease that attacks the central nervous system, made up of the brain, spinal cord and optic nerve. Whilst ten approved diseasemodifying medications exist for people with relapsing-remitting MS in Australia, there are currently no effective treatments for progressive forms of MS and much less is known about this form of the condition.

Fifty per cent of people with relapsingremitting MS will have progressive MS within 10 years of diagnosis, whilst 90% will develop progressive MS within 25 years.

Around 10% of people are diagnosed with the primary progressive form of MS from the outset.

“Working in isolation on an issue such as progressive MS risks duplicating efforts or making only slow progress” says Dr Matthew Miles, Chief Executive Officer of MS Research Australia. “By enabling global collaboration, this alliance is dedicated to fast-tracking the type of discoveries that can truly change lives” he added.

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“As one of the world’s leading MS organisations, the scientific experience, expertise and financial resources that MS Research Australia can bring to the Alliance will add enormous strength to the initiative,” said Professor Alan Thompson, Chair of the Alliance’s Scientific Steering Committee, Vice-Dean of University College London Faculty of Brain Sciences, and a Fellow of the American Academy of Neurology.

“There are already considerable research efforts underway that will align with the work of the Alliance such as the MS Research Australia Brain Bank and the MS Clinical Trials Network,” he added.

MS Research Australia joins the Alliance as a managing member, with a key role in the Executive Committee and contributing technical advice and expertise. MS Research Australia will also continue to fund the best progressive MS research here in Australia as has been the case over the last decade. r Jae Lee and Dr Steven Petratos, M Monash University.

Summer 2014

Cup overfloweth for skin cancer research Scientists at QIMR Berghofer Medical Research Institute are hoping to collect more than 43,000 saliva samples over the coming months as part of their world-leading research into skin cancers.

A major genetics study is underway as part of QSkin – a long-term investigation into the burden of skin cancers in Queensland.

Chief investigator Professor David Whiteman said 43,000 participants were recruited to QSkin three years ago and have already participated in a range of surveys and data collection activities.

“Our QSkin volunteers will now be asked to provide DNA by spitting into a sample collection cup which we’ll be supplying them with,” Professor Whiteman said.

“This very simple procedure will allow us to conduct a genome wide association study (GWAS) – scanning complete sets of DNA from large numbers of people to find genetic markers for a particular disease.

“We will be able to compare variations within the DNA of people with basal cell (BCC) or squamous cell (SCC) cancers, with those who have no history of skin cancer.”

Professor Whiteman said while researchers have already identified many risk factors for BCC and SCC, it was not always clear exactly how these factors caused cancer.

“There is a lot we don’t know about the genes that make people more susceptible to developing one of these cancers,” Professor Whiteman said.

“This project will give us a better understanding of how these cancers develop, and could also lead to new therapies.”

QSkin genetic study was awarded $3.3 million last year from the NHMRC to conduct the genetic study – funding that will see the project through until the end of 2018.

It is expected to be four years before the genetic information collected over the next 18 months can be processed and analysed.

Professor Whiteman said researchers undertaking such long-term work had to be optimistic their projects would continue to attract funding.

“We are hopeful that our supporters will continue to see the importance of QSkin,” Professor Whiteman said.

“Our ultimate aim is to develop a tool doctors can use to predict a patient’s risk of developing melanomas and other skin cancers, so those at high risk can be offered regular skin checks.

“Similar tools developed for heart disease have proven highly effective.”

QSkin is the largest medical research study ever conducted in Queensland.

In the first year of the study 3,381 participants were reported being treated for 6,742 separate skin cancers, and approximately 3.5% of participants had more than one skin cancer.

The rate of skin cancer was 50% higher in men than in women.

Due to the large number of participants involved in the study, about 2,000 saliva

kits will be mailed out each month for the next 18 months.

“We are asking that our participants follow the instructions included in the kit and return the saliva sample in the post pack provided,” Professor Whiteman said.

“There is also a brief two-page survey about participants’ general health and lifestyle.”

More information about QSkin is available at qskin.qimrberghofer.edu.au rofessor David Whiteman is leading P the QSkin study at QIMR Berghofer Medical Research Institute.

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Summer 2014

Safe blood relies on research When your medical product is literally the lifeblood of Australia’s medical system but the only source is volunteers, it takes constant research and improvement to keep supplies flowing.

The Australian Red Cross Blood Service works to ensure a safe, secure and costeffective supply of quality blood products for Australia’s patients. From securing a regular supply of donors, through to monitoring threats to the blood supply and finding improved ways to process, store and distribute blood components, the Research and Development (R&D) Division of the Blood Service contributes expertise towards this vital goal.

“We focus strongly on aligning research with strategic goals and translating research into changed business practice,” says Professor David Irving, Executive Director of R&D. The Blood Service’s R&D division has over 60 research team members in dedicated facilities in Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne. Along with collaborating internally with Blood Service divisions responsible for manufacturing, donor customer service, product quality, medical services and organ transplants, R&D also works externally with hospitals, universities and research institutes to translate research into outcomes for the health system and, ultimately, for patients.

These are just a few of over 50 projects in which Blood Service researchers are actively working towards the goal of better health through research.

Calling up the reserves Although the need for blood is constant, demand fluctuates. Having a supply of appropriate donors ready to ‘top up’ supplies at any time is crucial. R&D’s Donor and Community Research Group, in collaboration with Sydney University, recently conducted a study to increase the Blood Service’s ability to respond to changing demand.

During the study they formed an ‘army reserve’ of blood donors. Previous donors who hadn’t donated within the past two years were asked if they were willing to be on a list to be contacted only when supplies were low. The research found ‘reserve list’ donors are twice as likely to respond to a call for donation than regular active donors. This reduces the donor contact cost per donation by 40 percent.

Finding the risks Australia has one of the safest blood supplies in the world – but this could easily be compromised without active research to identify emerging risks and develop procedures to control them.

Dr Helen Faddy and her team in Brisbane investigate possible risks to the safety of the blood supply. Recently, the team examined the historical distribution of dengue fever both geographically and seasonally and developed a predictive model to estimate how climate change may change the incidence of dengue and affect the donor blood supply. Research is now underway to track the incidence of Ross River Virus in donor samples throughout Australia to ensure the ongoing safety of the blood supply.

Supplying the front line During active combat, the prompt and safe supply of blood products can save the lives of our Australian Defence Force (ADF) personnel. However, with short shelf lives of five days for platelets, six weeks for red blood cells and 12 months for fresh frozen plasma, it’s a real challenge to supply blood products to soldiers in difficult environments.

After over five years of research, R&D’s Applied and Developmental Research team in Sydney, led by Dr Denese Marks, has developed a process for preparing deepfrozen blood components. This groundbreaking work extends the shelf life of blood components up to 10 years by adapting and developing blood freezing and thawing technologies. Not only will it provide the ADF with life-saving blood components in tough environments, in future it may also benefit communities in remote Australia.

“We’ve managed to translate our findings from the laboratory into the manufacturing arena and subsequently into the field with the ADF to help save the lives of those working on the front line,” Professor Irving said.

“This has been a real milestone. It’s the culmination of a great team effort over the past five years to what are now potential new products.”

he team from the combined ADF/ARCBS Frozen Blood Trial conducted at the Enoggera T Health Centre, Gallipoli Barracks, Queensland, Friday 23 May 2014. Blood Service Team members shown are: Bondar (back row, third from left), Andrew Tracy (front row, fifth from left), Mirande Gorrion (front row, fifth from right), Dr Denese Marks (front row, fourth from right), Dr Janet Wong (front row, second from right)

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Acknowledgement of funding: Australian governments fully fund the Australian Red Cross Blood Service for the provision of blood products and services to the Australian community

Summer 2014

Research given wings by The Repat Foundation The Repat Foundation is a philanthropic organisation that supports research and equipment in the areas of amputee health, mental health and wellbeing and rehabilitation.

Researchers have described The Repat Foundation’s role as “invaluable” in supporting their work.

Many of the research projects that were ‘seed funded’ by The Repat Foundation over the last couple of years have progressed to new and exciting stages – with some showcased on the world stage.

Two examples are below.

Rheumatoid Arthritis For the last three years, a research team led by the Repatriation General Hospital (known as ‘the Repat’) has been trialling what is effectively a ‘target and treat’ approach to the debilitating disease, Rheumatoid Arthritis (RA) – aiming for individualised treatment protocols that will take the guess work out of managing the disease and see patients paired with the most effective treatment earlier.

Ongoing active recruitment continues in this study, called the ARBITRATE study (arthroscopic synovial biopsy based targeted biologic therapy versus conventional therapy in adults with RA), and the researchers have now recruited over 40 patients.

The device, the most advanced of its kind in the world and a first for Australia, was initially seed funded by a $30,000 grant from The Repat Foundation.

“This funding was the catalyst for the commencement of the project, which has contributed to the enormous success of this endeavour. We are very thankful for this important funding by The Repat Foundation,” Dr Costi said.

Since the official launch of the Hexapod Robot in 2011, the development has resulted in honours, masters and PhD projects, publications (eight papers, one under review, seven in preparation), five awards, 32 national and international conference and invited presentations, significant media exposure (more than 500,000 viewers/ readers), strong commercial interest and international recognition.

Strong collaborative links now being realised with The University of Melbourne; The University of Bologna – Italy; The University of Bath – UK; The AO Research Institute – Davos, Switzerland; Institute of Orthopaedic Research and Biomechanics, University Hospital Ulm – Germany; and the Department of Biomedical Engineering – The University of Delaware, USA. If you would like to ‘make a difference’ and learn more about the valuable research seed funded by The Repat Foundation, please contact (08) 8275 1039 or visit www.therepatfoundation.org.au r John Costi with the Hexapod D Robot – image courtesy of Flinders University.

“The bar for the targeted treatment group is set high: drug free remission. This has never been attempted before,” explained co-researcher Dr Mihir Wechalekar from the Rheumatology Research Unit at the Repat.

Dr Wechalekar said a significant proportion of patients have achieved remission, and a few have continued to stay in remission despite not being on any regular treatment.

“Investigations are underway to identify markers in the blood and joint lining (called the syonvium) that will predict response in an individual patient.”

He said that funding from The Repat Foundation has been “invaluable” in assisting this research.

The Hexapod Robot The Hexapod Robot was developed by a team led by Flinders Biomechanical Engineer, Dr John Costi, and including researchers from The University of Adelaide’s School of Mechanical Engineering. The robot can study complex joint motions in 3D to help design and develop improved joint replacements.

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Summer 2014 Expert committed to improving the quality of life for all people appointed at SAHMRI The South Australian Health and Medical Research Institute (SAHMRI) has recently appointed the Institute’s inaugural Nutrition and Metabolism theme leader, Professor Chris Proud, who assumed the role on 1 September 2014.

The appointment of Professor Proud has concluded the SAHMRI theme leader search; now each of SAHMRI’s seven research themes have a leader.

At SAHMRI, Professor Proud’s research will focus on how nutrients control the functions of human and animal cells, and how defects in these delicate mechanisms contribute to human diseases including obesity, diabetes and cardiovascular disease. He also has a strong interest in cancer and neurological disease, which provide strong links to other research themes within SAHMRI. Professor Proud will provide expertise in understanding the molecules involved in these processes – and in identifying potential new therapeutic targets – while others within the theme study nutrition in people and animals.

Professor Proud says he is inspired by the opportunity that he has been provided with at SAHMRI, working across all seven of the research themes and collaborating with CSIRO Nutrition Division/Preventative Health Flagship, the University of Adelaide, Flinders University and Waite agriculture and plant research.

“SAHMRI was a very attractive option for me. It’s not often that you have the opportunity to be involved in the start up of a new research program at a brand new state of the art institute.

“Heading up the Nutrition and Metabolism Theme at SAHMRI was particularly exciting for a variety of reasons – the strength of research in this area in South Australia, its importance for human health and its direct relevance to all the other Themes at SAHMRI.” UK-born Professor Proud studied his Bachelor of Science at the University of Bristol, completed his PhD at the University of Dundee and was a post-doctoral fellow at Universities of Goettingen, Germany and Sussex, in the UK. He then became a lecturer at University of Kent at Canterbury, Lecturer and Reader at the University of Bristol, and progressed to a full Professorship at University of Kent at Canterbury.

At the University of Dundee, Professor Proud was Head of the Division of

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Professor Chris Proud

Molecular Physiology in the College of Life Sciences and coordinated the Medical Research Council Nutrient Sensing and Signaling Research Group. In 2005, Professor Proud became Head of the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at the University of British Columbia and served as co-Director of the Life Sciences Institute.

especially the protein kinases, that control protein synthesis and ribosome biogenesis and their roles in metabolic diseases such as diabetes, as well as in cancer, cardiovascular disorders and normal and disease-associated neurological processes.

Most recently (since 2008), Professor Proud was at the University of Southampton, where he led a large research team studying the mechanisms,

Professor Proud still runs a sizeable laboratory at the University of Southampton and also supervises two graduate students in Milan, Italy.

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Summer 2014

Sax Institute’s 45 and Up study used to progress clinical research New research from the Sax Institute’s 45 and Up Study has demonstrated that men with erectile dysfunction have a higher risk of hospital admission for heart disease, even if they have no history of heart problems. They are also at greater risk of premature death from any cause.

Researchers from the Sax Institute, Australian National University, The University of Sydney, Victor Chang Cardiac Research Institute and The George Institute for Global Health examined hospital and death records for 95,000 men from the 45 and Up Study. The men gave information about health and lifestyle factors and were followed for a two to three-year period, recording 7855 hospital admissions related to cardiovascular disease and 2304 deaths.

They enhance the self-report information in that clinical data is available on participants for many years prior to baseline.

Also, because of the large size of the Sax Institute’s 45 and Up Study, identification of participants with certain conditions and/ or characteristics also means that it is an ideal source for which nested case control studies and clinical trials can be conducted without the need to recruit from the general public and/or patient groups.

rofessor Emily Banks, Scientific Director P of the 45 and Up Study, presents research at a Sax Institute meeting.

The research, published in international journal PLOS Medicine is the first to show a direct link between how severe a man’s erection problem is and his risk of dying early or being treated in hospital for heart disease. They also found the risks of future heart disease and premature death increased steadily with severity of erectile dysfunction, both in men with and without a history of cardiovascular disease.

The Sax Institute’s 45 and Up Study is the largest cohort study ever conducted in Australia. The Study will help determine the community’s future requirements and give governments reliable evidence to underpin sustainable policy.

More than 267,000 NSW residents 45 years and over were recruited to the Study and they have provided information on their health, lifestyle and demographic characteristics, as well as consent to link this data with other administrative data collections and to be contacted for substudies. The cohort is being followed up every five years.

The 45 and Up Study provides large-scale, open-source research infrastructure – that will not only address priority research questions in healthy ageing, but will be a long-term, Australian-specific resource for internationally leading public health research.

The capacity to link the 45 and Up cohort to administrative data, as was the case in this study, means that a very large amount of additional information is available to researchers. These data sources provide independent virtually complete clinical and outcome data, including exposure to medications, health services use, health events and even notifiable disease events.

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Summer 2014 St Vincent’s pioneers autologous stem cell transplants to tackle autoimmune diseases There’s an extraordinary stairwell in The Kinghorn Cancer Centre on the St Vincent’s Campus which to me is emblematic of two key pillars on which St Vincents’ biomedical research success has been forged: translation and philanthropy. that some patients with very severe autoimmune disease could also be treated

by HSCT.

oby Hall, Group Chief Executive T Officer, St Vincent’s Health Australia

As you enter the Kinghorn building you are confronted by an open atrium which enables visitors to see all ten floors of the building with clinical patient treatment areas housed on the bottom floors and the Garvan’s cancer researchers occupying the top floors. Linking these two endeavors is the zigzagging stairwell that fosters interaction between the building’s inhabitants. No doubt for the patients, they get a very reassuring sense that there are a bunch of world-leading researchers watching over them – as intended by the building’s architects. For the researchers, they are continuously reminded of the patients – a stark contrast to the prevailing silos of yesteryear.

Auto-immune conditions are a group of diseases where the patient’s own immune system mistakenly attacks their body resulting in skin, joint, nerve, kidney, lung and gut conditions which can become life threatening when resistant to standard therapy. The evidence for HSCT in these conditions came from animal models and patients who had chemotherapy for coexisting blood tumours and had an autoimmune disease (AID). Often these patients had prolonged remissions of their disease.

In the case of systemic sclerosis, the auto immune attack in these patients causes tightening of the skin and scarring in the lungs, whereas in multiple sclerosis spinal cord and brain inflammation can occur.

In some cases, people with auto-immune conditions can die from their condition, particularly when the disease has failed multiple treatments.

In some of these patients where all other therapies have failed, HSCT can sometimes be a suitable therapy and is showing promising signs of achieving lasting remission for them.

One of the many novel treatments taking place in the Kinghorn Building is the use of autologous stem cell transplants for the treatment of autoimmune diseases by the St Vincent’s Hematology Unit.

The procedure requires specific immunechemotherapy with a drug called cyclophosphamide and growth factors from the bone marrow to enable blood stem cells to be collected. Once the immune system has been profoundly suppressed with chemotherapy and antibody therapy, blood stem cells can be infused so they can re-grow the blood and immune system and protect patients from the toxic effects of the chemotherapy. There is now good evidence that the new immune system from the infused stem cells will no longer attack the patient’s body resulting in significant improvement in their condition.

Since the mid-1980’s St Vincent’s has been conducting autologous haematopoietic stem cell transplantations (HSCT) on patients with blood diseases such as lymphoma and myeloma. The procedure generally entails patients receiving high doses of chemotherapy followed by stem cell infusion so that the blood and immune system can regrow. In more recent years various evidence has converged to suggest

What I find most encouraging is that we’ve been able to leverage off our bone marrow transplant expertise to be an international leader today in this promising new pathway for treating auto-immune diseases. If we can continue to consolidate this expertise in stem-cell transplantation and research we will start to make some major inroads in improving outcomes and creating a better outlook for these patients.

The stairwell itself is constructed of stunning Australian hardwood and flanked by a gigantic Richard Long artwork spanning the entire height of the building – both made possible by generous philanthropic support.

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Research Australia grassROOTS SUMMER 2014

Already we have transplanted 61 patients with autoimmune diseases consisting of mainly MS, rheumatoid arthritis and scleroderma patients. All of these patients have had no relapses of their diseases post-transplant. In the case of those with MS, about half have reported an improvement in their functionality.

The future outlook of this research is strong. St Vincent’s is hoping to partner with North Western Hospital in Chicago to conduct Phase III trials of the treatment.

Owing to the fact that it is novel and still in trial phase, currently the treatment does not fall under any formal recurrent government funding arrangement so philanthropic support has played a pivotal role in getting the St Vincent’s Hematology team to this stage where they are making major inroads in treating the most intractable autoimmune diseases.

To a large degree, the metaphorical stairwell – or in the case of the Kinghorn – the actual stairwell – forms a powerful symbol of the important link between medical research, philanthropic support and translational cutting edge treatments such as our stem cell work in tackling MS.

Summer 2014 Clinical trials to evaluate non-mainstream approaches to halting dementia The worldwide figure for the number of people with dementia is estimated at 35 million with this number predicted to triple in the next 30 to 40 years.

Pharmaceutical drugs have limited success for dementia – they are poorly tolerated and do little more than slow the progression of the disease. They also have limited efficacy in preventing the conversion of milder forms of cognitive decline such as Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI) to full blown dementia. Perhaps this is not surprising when one considers that most pharmaceutical approaches to slowing cognitive decline rely on the “magic bullet” approach. That is they tend to target only one of the brain’s many neurotransmitters.

It is unlikely that human cognitive function, which involves multiple, complex processes will benefit greatly from such an approach.

The Centre for Human Psychopharmacology (CHP) at Swinburne University has focused on the potential for nutraceuticals (loosely defined as nutritional/supplements which provide health benefits over and above nutrition) to improve cognitive function and prevent age-related mental decline.

For example, for centuries certain herbal extracts have been used as cognitive enhancers, though their use has been based on anecdote and historical precedence. Over the last two decades, however we have applied the best clinical trial methods and found increasing empirical evidence to support the use of certain bioactive nutrients for improved mood and cognitive health. In this context there is good evidence for cognition enhancement from herbal extracts including B-vitamins, Bacopa monnieri, Pycnogenol, Guaraná, Salvia (Sage), Lemon balm, Ginseng and curcumin among others.

Intervention (ARCLI) study. This is a $1m study (from the ARC and industry) evaluating the effects of three different compounds on normal ageing over a 12-month period. The extracts include the Indian herb Bacopa monnieri, Pycnogenol (an extract of pine bark) and a proprietary mix of neuroactive nutrients. Another trial, the Cognitive Ageing, Nutrition and Neurogenesis (CANN) study, the result of a $2m international competitive grant, is being conducted in collaboration with the Universities of Illinois (US) and East Anglia (UK). The CANN study focuses on the impact of a dietary intervention on brain structure and function and memory over a 12-month period in individuals with MCI and Subjective Memory Impairment.

Both ARCLI and the CANN trial use a complement of behavioural, biomarker and neuroimaging measures to evaluate the effects of nutritional interventions on cognition and its underlying processes. The studies are also measuring changes in processes which directly influence cognitive function such as bloodflow, oxidative stress and inflammation. Importantly these are known to be modifiable through nutritional interventions and appropriate dietary supplementation.

These trials present their own challenges.

Herbal extracts often contain multiple active

components – for example polyphenols, terpenoids and saccharides – which can interact in complex and idiosyncratic ways.

They may exert multiple subtle effects on neuronal, metabolic and hormonal systems which underpin behavioural processes. It is therefore crucial that high quality, standardised extracts are utilised in order to yield reproducible effects.

However with increasing sophistication in the development of standardisation we are embarking on a fruitful period in the development of botanical cognitive enhancers which are likely to have greater efficacy than monopharmacological agents.

This polypharmacological approach may offer more promise in the context of cognitive enhancement. The team at the CHP are hopeful that these initial trials may lead to promising candidates for studies into non-mainstream treatments for conditions where cognitive function is severely compromised. winburne’s Advanced Technology S Centre which houses the Centre for Human Psychopharmacology.

Studies comparing pharmaceuticals with nutraceuticals in direct head-to-head trials are rare. However comparisons of the effect sizes of several herbal extracts with, for example, Modafinil (the cognitive enhancer du jour) suggests that they are equally efficacious, at least in healthy young adults. Thus it appears that certain herbal extracts may be at least as promising as pharmaceuticals for cognitive enhancement.

The CHP is currently involved in numerous clinical trials of various herbal extracts and nutritional interventions focusing on their mood and cognitive effects. These are targeted at several stages of the ageing process. They include the ARC Longevity

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Summer 2014

MRI Test to Predict AntiDepressant Medication Success Australian medical researchers have developed a new way of using Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) technology to improve the notoriously hit-and-miss prescription of antidepressant drugs.

A team at the Westmead Millennium Institute for Medical Research (WMI) in Sydney has developed a test that uses a type of MRI scanning to predict whether one of three commonly prescribed antidepressant medications (ADM) is likely to be effective in treating a particular patient.

The findings of WMI’s Brain Dynamics Centre, published in the British Journal of Psychiatry, could result in the first useful guide to clinicians when deciding on a drug treatment for a patient suffering from Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) – a decision process which the study says is currently “no better than a coin toss”.

“The remission (success) rate for all ADMs is less than 50 per cent and, if initial medication fails, the likelihood that an alternative anti-depressant will be effective lowers further to only 20 to 30 per cent,” said Brain Dynamics Centre director and study first author, Dr Mayuresh Korgaonkar.

“This is the first predictive imaging treatment test in depression and probably in psychiatry.

It has the potential to significantly improve clinical service delivery and healthcare outcomes, saving the health system substantial amounts of money.”

The WMI research is part of an international study by Sydney bio-tech company Brain Resource Limited to Predict Optimised Treatment in Depression (iSPOT-D).

The $20 million iSPOT-D study is seeking to identify biomarkers that can predict

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outcomes from treatment with common ADMs. There is currently no clinically useful pre-treatment measure which can guide choice of therapy in depression.

Having proven the concept in principle, Professor Grieve said the team is now hoping to develop a more affordable version of the testing protocol.

Starting in 2007, data was taken from 2016 study participants across 20 sites in five countries. Almost 250 of those had their brains imaged at Westmead, with a further 40 such tests conducted at Stanford University as a control.

Professor Grieve said the aim is to provide patients with an abbreviated MRI test for about $200, which compared with an estimated annual cost of depression of $8000 per person, per year, would “represent an effective allocation of health care spending”.

Senior author of the imaging study and head of imaging research at WMI’s Brain Dynamics Centre, Professor Stuart Grieve, said the iSPOT-D imaging revealed that MDD brains are “wired” differently.

“Using functional and structural MRI we characterised and mapped key brain abnormalities that distinguish a depressed state,” he said.

“We showed that patients suffering from MDD had excessive focal grey matter loss, equivalent to someone up to 50 years older, and processed emotional tasks and cognitive tasks in an abnormal way.”

Professor Grieve, who is the ParkerHughes Professor of Radiology at Sydney University Medical School, said MRI brain scanning can identify patients who are unlikely to respond to a particular ADM with a high degree of accuracy.

“We demonstrated that altered connectivity in pathways connecting the key emotional areas of the brain predicted with 74 per cent accuracy whether an ADM would be effective.”

Research Australia grassROOTS SUMMER 2014

MDD is a leading cause of morbidity, mortality, disability and lost productivity for individuals aged between 15 and 44 years, costing Australia an estimated $12.6 billion per year.

Dr Korgaonkar said the team at WMI now hoped commercialisation of the depression treatment test could commence within five years.

“These findings represent the start of personalised medicine for the treatment of depression,” he said.

“We are using cutting-edge techniques to define circuits in the brain that are affected by depression. This has never been done before and I think this is going to change things for the better for patients.”

he Westmead Millennium Institute’s T Mayuresh Korgaonkar and one of his PhD students looking at an MRI brain scan of a depression sufferer.

JDRF and NHMRC continue Summer 2014 collaboration to provide $7.5 million for new research grants Three Australian research centres have received a total of $7.5 million funding in October 2014 to find better treatments and methods to prevent type 1 diabetes.

The National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) Centres for Research Excellence (CRE) are jointly funded by the NHMRC and JDRF, the world’s largest charitable supporter of type 1 diabetes research. The CREs will conduct research into new ways to prevent, treat and manage complications of type 1 diabetes, and investigate how to improve the translation of new technologies for managing diabetes into clinical practice.

The NHMRC and JDRF have built a long standing collaborative relationship which has spanned over 15 years and has supported significant research excellence in Australia.

Together, the two organisations have jointly funded 18 type 1 diabetes research projects focused on basic science as well as clinical research in centres across Australia since 1998. The funding announced in October 2014 brings the total joint investment into type 1 diabetes research to over $46 million.

NHMRC CEO Professor Warwick Anderson said he was pleased to be collaborating with JDRF once again.

“NHMRC has had a productive, longstanding relationship with JDRF. The jointly funded Centres for Research Excellence are the latest in a long line of collaborations between our two organisations,” Professor Anderson said.

JDRF-NHMRC Centres for Research Excellence Professor Mark Cooper, Baker IDI Heart and Diabetes Institute, JDRF/NHMRC Diabetes Complications Centre of Research Excellence ($2,500,000) There remains an urgent need to help and identify people at highest risk of complications associated with type 1 diabetes. Led by Professor Cooper, this CRE aims to translate new experimental findings into strategies for the prevention, treatment and management of type 1 diabetes and its complications, as well as training clinical investigators in this field.

Professor Jennifer Couper, University of Adelaide, Centre of Research Excellence for the Protection of Pancreatic Beta Cells ($2,500,000) The incidence of type 1 diabetes in children has doubled over the last twenty years. To find out why, researchers at this CRE, led

by Professor Couper, will follow children

who are at risk of type 1 diabetes. The team will enrol 1,400 children to study genetic and environmental influences to shed light on factors that impact early immune function. The overall aim is to better identify modifiable risk factors and improved methods of predicting and preventing type 1 diabetes.

Professor Timothy Jones, University of Western Australia, Improving the Lives of Young People with Type 1 Diabetes Using State-of-the-Art Therapies ($2,490,789) Although significant advances have been made with new technologies to improve diabetes outcomes, numerous challenges need to be overcome before those technologies can be made more widely available. The CRE will study the economic, psychological and behavioural factors that are keeping these technologies from reaching their full useability potential.

Professor Jones and his team will also work to promote the translation of these technologies into clinical practice.

DRF Australia’s CEO, J Mike Wilson

“Through our relationship, we have supported some of Australia’s finest researchers in their investigations to find new ways to improve the lives of people with diabetes and to bring us closer to preventing this condition in future,” he said.

“NHMRC’s CREs are uniquely designed to promote and improve the translation of research outcomes into policy and practice and I am confident that these three CREs will contribute much to our understanding of how to better tackle type 1 diabetes.”

JDRF Australia CEO Mike Wilson said, “JDRF is proud to be partnering again with the NHMRC to further our understanding of this chronic disease which affects more than 122,300 Australians.”

“Type 1 diabetes is a life-long autoimmune disease that usually occurs in childhood but can be diagnosed at any age. JDRF has some of the brightest minds working on ways to prevent, treat and ultimately cure type 1 diabetes and we know this funding will enable significant progress to be made by the three outstanding recipients.”

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Summer 2014

Overcoming brain injuries with stem cells Traffic accidents, sports injuries and falls can cause serious brain damage – and recovery is not rapid or certain. Such trauma causes brain cell death. Unlike cells in other parts of the body, brain cells do not easily divide and replicate so that repair or regaining of function is difficult.

The Institute of Health and Biomedical Innovation (IHBI) researcher Rachel Okolicsanyi is hoping her work with adult stem cells derived from bone marrow will overcome the difficulties. Using her background in genetics and recent work in cell biology, Ms Okolicsanyi is investigating whether adult stem cells can be steered to act as brain cells, also called neural cells, and take up the function of the damaged cells.

“The idea, for example, is that in stroke patients where the patient loses movement, speech or control of one side of their face because the brain’s electrical current is impaired, the stem cells can be introduced and help the electrical current reconnect by bypassing the damaged cells,” Ms Okolicsanyi explains.

The research has the potential to help some of the estimated 34,500 people admitted to Australian hospitals with a traumatic brain injury every year, making it as much as 10 times more common than a spinal cord injury. Those with traumatic brain injuries undergo lengthy physiotherapy regimes that involve teaching the brain to make new connections. Ms Okolicsanyi’s research, conducted in the lab of Professor Lyn Griffiths under the supervision of

Dr Larisa Haupt, has been published in the journal Developmental Biology, outlining the potential stem cells have for brain damage repair.

“What I am looking at is whether or not stem cells from the bone marrow have the potential to mature into neural cells,” Ms Okolicsanyi says. “Neural cells are those cells from the brain that make everything from the structure of the brain itself to the connections responsible for movement, voice, hearing and sight.”

The adult stem cells used for the research come from bone marrow and need to be modified to form neural cells. They undergo a process called differentiation, with researchers changing their environment to steer them to become the correct neural cell type – rather than fat, muscle or bone, for example. Even within the brain, there are many different cells that have unique structures and functions so the differentiation process is exacting.

A key to the process is a specific family of proteins found on the surface of cells called heparin sulfate proteoglycans.

“What we are hoping is that by manipulating this particular family of proteins we can encourage the stem cells to show a higher percentage of neural

markers, indicating that they could mature into neural cells rather than what they would normally do, which is form into bone, cartilage and fat. We will modify the surrounding environment to manipulate the cells, such as adding commonly found biological chemicals, including complex salts found in the body, to see if it inhibits or encourages cellular processes.”

Ms Okolicsanyi says doing this should enable researchers to see the different reactions stem cells have to particular chemicals and find out whether they increase neural markers, needed for successful differentiation. “The question is the functional aspects. The cells we create may look like neural cells, but the research aims to determine if they function – and make connections – as brain cells, taking in chemicals used to pass messages along the cells.”

Her research is in its early stages but shows potential to be expanded to a wider multidisciplinary project involving collaboration with brain researchers and doctors, with investigations into how the differentiated cells could be introduced in the body.

Among the major benefits of using a patient’s own adult stem cells is the reduced risk of the body rejecting the differentiated cells – and the lack of ethical issues associated with the use of other types, such as embryonic stem cells.

Steps in the research: 1. Take adult bone marrow stem cells 2. Modify the environment to encourage the cells to turn into neural, or brain, cells 3. Increase the percentage of the cell population that can turn, or differentiate into the cell type 4. Confirm the cell response to see if they have neural-like function 5. See if the cells will aid the brain’s repair process

IHBI researcher, Rachel Okolicsanyi

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Research Australia grassROOTS SUMMER 2014

Board of Directors Chair Professor Christine Bennett AO Dean, School of Medicine, Sydney University of Notre Dame Australia

Deputy Chair Peter Wills AC

Welcome our new staff member At the end of October Helle Clausen joined Research Australia as Manager – Strategic Alliances. Helle brings a wealth of experience in member relationship management and has most recently held a role with a not-for-profit organisation managing relations with major healthcare corporations and Governments, Australia wide. Prior to this Helle has enjoyed working as international account manager for a world leading medical device manufacturer followed by several years in the shipping & logistics industry focusing on implementation of complex supply chain optimisation solutions for market leading FMCG and Retail clients.

Helle Clausen will be working closely with the Research Australia team to maintain and develop Research Australia’s membership base, building stronger voices and network engagement opportunities across the various sectors in health and medical research.

Helle Clausen welcomes any questions or queries via email helle.clausen@researchaustralia.org you can contact her on mobile 0400 213 875.

Helle Clausen, Manager Strategic Alliances

Editor’s Corner Elizabeth Foley CEO & Managing Director Research Australia

Who can put an article in grassROOTS?

Dr Alison Butt Director Research Investment National Breast Cancer Foundation

grassROOTS is for and by members of Research Australia and is designed to showcase the activity in philanthropy for health and medical research, through either fund raising activity, awards, or the results of actual research funded by philanthropy. It is also a vehicle for the broader community to understand the importance of philanthropic funding and how they can contribute to the expansion and improvement in health and medical research in Australia.

Shelley Evans Patient Advocacy Director Genzyme Associate Professor Mary Haines Director Strategic Research Investment Cancer Institute NSW Professor Janet Hiller Dean, School of Health Swinburne University of Technology Geoffrey Joyce Executive Director Macquarie Capital Dr Anna Lavelle CEO AusBiotech Ltd Professor Brendan Crabb Director & CEO Burnet Institute Professor Alexandra McManus Director Centre of Excellence Science Seafood & Health Curtin University Barry Thomas Vice-President, Director Asia Pacific Cook Medical Dr Andrew Nash Senior Vice President, Research CSL Limited Professor Richard Head Deputy Vice Chancellor, Research & Innovation University of South Australia Professor John McGrath Executive Director Queensland Centre for Mental Health Research Andrew Giles CEO Garvan Research Foundation Associate Professor Greg Kaplan Chief Operating Officer Ingham Institute

When will I need to get my article in by if I want to be featured in the next edition?

The article submission deadline is January 22, 2015. Due to high demand for editorial space and to ensure the magazine maintains its readability and audience engagement levels the article word count has been reduced to 600 – 650, and please provide one or more photos (with subtitles) and logo to accompany the article.

Please submit articles via email to: danijela.krha@researchaustralia.org Research Australia does not warrant or guarantee the accuracy, quality, completeness, currency, or validity of any information on its website or newsletter.

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