Monthly Archives: August 2012

New laboratories help put Centenary research into practice

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Professor John Rasko, AO and Minister for Health and Medical Research, The Hon. Jillian Skinner, MP

Professor John Rasko, AO and Minister for Health and Medical Research, The Hon. Jillian Skinner, MP

Centenary is at the heart of Sydney’s new five-year plan for clinical research just launched by the NSW Minister for Health and Medical Research, Jillian Skinner.

“We applaud the SLHD for having the foresight to have a strategic approach to medical research, and look forward to an ever closer collaboration that will enrich our patients’ lives,” said Centenary’s Executive Director, Professor Mathew Vadas, AO.

The launch itself demonstrated the Institute’s pivotal role, because it also served as the opening for Royal Prince Alfred Hospital’s new Cell and Molecular Therapies Laboratories which will be run by Centenary’s head of Gene and Stem Cell Therapy, Professor John Rasko AO.

“With this milestone we open up new opportunities for treating patients who suffer from cancer, genetic and other diseases,” Professor Rasko says.

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Another successful City2Surf!

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City2Surf Team 2012

Final and well-deserved congratulations to all our Run4Research team members for their extreme efforts leading up to and on the day. Many exercise regimes were tested and proved to be effective for the 14km fun run. Everyone looked great in their new Centenary race shirts, kindly donated by Nike Sydney and enjoyed the idyllic picnic spot at the end of the race that LB, Suzie and Nick set up in the early hours of the morning.

As for the race, the lightning time of 59.21 was reached by Aaron McGrath who led the way for the Centenary team followed by Darshan Parmar (62.07), Matt O’Donnell (65.48) and Ben Roediger (72.35).   Continue reading →

Getting to the heart of topline research

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Dr Jodie Ingles

NHMRC/National Heart Foundation early career fellow, Dr Jodie Ingles is a much awarded Centenary Institute researcher who is in demand—and her work could lead to a significant change in how we care for people with a genetic heart disease

Among the most significant findings of her PhD studies, supervised by Professor Chris Semsarian, is that genetic testing is a cost effective approach to managing families with genetic heart disease. Jodie also found that it has no lasting psychological impact on those tested, even in those who test gene-positive. Continue reading →

Snooping on the interplay of molecules

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Centenary’s Cytometry, Imaging and IT Manager, Dr Adrian Smith

What can you discover with the latest Leica ground state depletion super-resolution microscope at between 40 and 60 millionths of a millimetre? Structures inside cells right down to the level of large molecules, such as proteins.

Given that much of the work of Centenary researchers is involved with studying protein interactions, there is already a lively queue forming to use the new Leica microscope, the first in the Southern Hemisphere. It has been acquired in collaboration with Sydney University’s Faculty of Science, the Sydney Medical School, the School of Medical Sciences, Bosch Institute, the Australian Centre for Microscopy and Microanalysis (ACMM) and Leica Microsystems itself. Continue reading →

The Final Countdown to the 2012 City2Surf!

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Dr Nikolas Haass, Head of the Melanoma Research lab at the Centenary, will step in for me on race day.

Dr Nikolas Haass, Head of the Melanoma Research lab at the Centenary, will step in for me on race day.

So it’s finally happening – after months of gruelling training and outstanding fundraising efforts, our Run4Research team is ready to take their marks in Australia’s largest fun run!

Due to a reoccurring injury from last year, I unfortunately had to drop out of the run. However, I’m thrilled to report that one of our scientists, Dr Nikolas Haass will be taking my place.

So far our team has raised almost $13,000 for the lifesaving research happening at the Centenary!!!

With only a few days left until race day, I present to you our amazeballs Run4Research team – Please click on their names to support them and the important work being done at the Centenary.

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La vie en rose

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PhD Scholar Caitlin Gillis

Congratulations to one of our research assistants, Caitlin Gillis, who is off to Paris on a full scholarship to undertake a PhD at the Pasteur Institute.

Caitlin is one of only nine students selected from around the world for the highly competitive Pasteur – Paris University International Doctoral Program.

“Science is such an international discipline, especially at the Centenary Institute: there are people from all over the world working here,” Caitlin says. Continue reading →

Prize-winning talk

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Keynote speaker Professor Sir Marc Feldmann

Professor Sir Marc Feldmann, Chair of the Centenary Institute’s Scientific Advisory Board, is the keynote speaker at tonight’s Annual Meeting, which celebrates the strength of the Institute’s science.

He’ll discuss his prize-winning work understanding rheumatoid arthritis at the University of Oxford’s Kennedy Institute of Rheumatology.

Centenary researcher Professor Barbara Fazekas de St Groth will talk about her work on the ‘hygiene hypothesis’: the ecology of immuno-inflammatory disease. It’s the idea that we can be too clean and fail to train our immune system effectively.

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A meeting of the world’s best minds celebrates Centenary

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Annual Meeting

Centenary Institute Annual Meeting 2012

Eminent speakers, awards, expert researchers, the Governor of New South Wales – the Centenary Institute Annual Meeting truly is a celebration of everything we’ve achieved in the past 12 months.

It’s also the culmination of this week’s visit of our Scientific Advisory Board (SAB), an elite international group of scientists, who have spent three days assessing Centenary’s work and preparing a report that will help us set our course for the next year.

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Containment of multi-drug resistant TB in the Pacific is critical.

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Professor Warwick Britton, Head of the Mycobacterial Group

Professor Warwick Britton, Head of the Mycobacterial Group at Centenary and a Professor of Medicine at the University of Sydney, has been awarded $2.49 million towards a Centre of Research Excellence on tuberculosis control: from discovery to public health practice and policy – a collaborative program with colleagues from the University of Sydney, Woolcock Institute for Medical Research, University of Melbourne, Vietnam and Indonesia.

The grant adds to Centenary’s investment and effort in containing the spread of TB, still one of the world’s most devastating infectious diseases
and a growing threat to Australia. Drug resistant strains of tuberculosis are prevalent in Papua New Guinea, our closest neighbour.

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