soms newsletter may/jun2014

A World of Disease at Your Fingertips

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May/Jun 2014

A few decades ago, medical students used to spend an

inordinate amount of time inside UNSW’s Museum of

Human Disease. Studying its formalin-preserved specimens

was the primary way to learn how to identify the

appearances of disease.

Susi Hamilton

Now, thanks to a unique app devel-oped by UNSW’s Department of Pathology and the Museum, students can study the same signs of disease while doing rounds on a hospital ward, while sitting on a train or, should they so choose, from the comfort of their own beds.

Images of Disease is an interactive edu-cational app that catalogues the forms and structures of more than 1000

diseases, ranging from heart attack to hydatid cysts; diphtheria to asthma. � e images, which include the micro-scopic as well as the gross, can be cross-referenced, enlarged, measured and explored in depth. � e app is aimed at medical students, specialist trainees in radiology and pathology, and medical practitioners.

“In the old days, when I was a medical student, we used to spend hours and days in the Pathology museum. Some people even slept in there because there was just so much to learn,” says Associate Professor Gary Velan, head

continued on page 2Associate Professor Gary Velan

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of UNSW’s Department of Pathology. “Now people can access these things in their own time, in their own space and learn as they go.

“When students are in a clinical envi-ronment, they can look up a particular disease, see what it looks like, its typical clinical features, what it looks like microscopically and perhaps also view a range of other diagnostic imaging investigations [such as an MRI scan or X-ray] that would typically accompany that sort of condition,” says Associ-ate Professor Velan, an award-winning teacher.

Fifth-year medical student Jacqueline Ho has been using the app this year. “It’s great to be able to study anywhere,” she says. “I haven’t used [the app] right there in front of a patient, but I’ve used it just afterwards, to check the pathol-ogy behind what’s happening.”

Images of Disease is only available for IOS-based devices, for now.

“We are hoping that through app sales we will be able to fund the develop-ment of the app for android and Win-dows devices so all students will be able to access it,” says Associate Professor Velan. � e app is free for UNSW medi-cal students or costs $17.99 through iTunes. � ere is also a free “Lite” ver-sion which includes a smaller selection of images.

Media contact: Susi Hamilton, UNSW Media O� ce, 0422 934 024

Fifth year medical student, Jacqueline Ho with the technology. Credit: James Croucher, News Corp

continued from page 1

2 May/Jun 2014School of Medical SciencesNewsletter

S Dacre

� e World Health Organisation says 6 million people die each year from tobacco use. But despite the staggering stats, many continue to light up. � is will no longer be the case however for students and sta� members of UNSW with the introduction of the new anti-smoking policy.

Designed to coincide with World No Tobacco Day, UNSW o� cially became a smoke free environment on the 31st May 2014.

� e new policy has been implemented

following obvious changes in attitudes around the world to smoking. As a world class leader in cancer research it was important for the university to mirror best health practices.

� is approach follows on from that of the University of Western Sydney who introduced smoke free campuses at the beginning of the year.

Although the new policy has had its detractors, there has been even greater support for its introduction from within the university populations. � e arguments regarding passive smoking continue but it is without doubt

that the more people are exposed to environmental smoking the greater the risk to their health. Given that at any one time UNSW can have 50,000 people on campus the new policy must surely be bene� tting all whether pro or opposed.

May / Junr 2014 3 School of Medical SciencesNewsletter

Sta�

Pro

� leS

tewa

rt He

ad Talk about muscle men and I immediately think of those

beefy weightlifter types who all but worship their

huge muscles – the Arnold Schwarzenegger’s and Lou

Ferrigno’s of the early 70’s for instance. In fact, we have a

real muscle man in the School – Stewart Head. Someone who

understands the mechanics of muscle and movement and

the rami� cations of the loss of muscle integrity. Stewart has

been working in the � eld of excitable tissue since 1986.

S Dacre

� e body has over 600 skeletal mus-cles that take on many shapes, � bre arrangements and � bre types which all go into making up our unique frames. � ey do have one thing in common however, they are responsible for movement in the animal kingdom, whether it be the dash of the Olympic 100m � nalists or the slow meanderings of the garden snail, Stewart says.

� e ultimate application for Stewart's research would be an understanding and possibly a treatment or cure for the cluster of diseases under the broad umbrella of muscular dystrophies – neuromuscular, genetic disorders which result in the progressive deterioration of both strength and

function. � e harsh reality is that a large percentage of those a� ected by muscular dystrophies are children, and in the case of Duchenne’s they are likely to be wheelchair bound by 8 years old and have foreshortened life expectancy of early adulthood. According to the Muscular Dystrophy Foundation Australia it is estimated that more than 23,000 people in Australia have some form of neuromuscular disease (a rate of 1:1,000).

It all began for Stewart in the North of England in the Lake District market town of Carlisle. � e three Head siblings (Stewart is the eldest of two boys and a girl) had a remarkable upbringing spanning three continents – Europe, Africa and Asia. � e family moved about following their father, a quali� ed marine engineer turned ma-rine salvage expert. Spending a total of � ve years in equatorial Africa, some of Stewart’s earliest memories are of the shores of Lake Victoria in Kenya and then later in the coastal town Mom-basa.

With an upbringing surrounded by all things aquatic it was little wonder that Stewart started to read undergradu-ate biology at Leicester University. On completion of his undergradu-ate degree he moved on to research invertebrate neurobiology looking at the nerve circuits controlling leg move-ment in the common shore crab. It was however the awarding of a scholar-ship that focussed his career path and changed the course of his life. Stewart received a SERC (Science and Engi-neering Research Council, UK) schol-arship, the only one awarded in his department that year. With funding

Muscle Matters


secured he took a leap of faith mov-ing from Leicester University to the University of Bristol and into the research lab of Professor Brian Bush to undertaking his doctoral work. Completing his PhD within three years, Stewart remains grate-ful for the wisdom and guidance he received in the Bush lab. “Put simply, Brian was an outstanding supervisor and mentor,” says Stewart.

Immediately after � nishing his PhD Stewart was o� ered a post-doctoral position at La Trobe University to work with Professor George Stephenson. It was in the Stephenson lab that he moved into the skeletal muscle � eld, which remains his major � eld of research. “I enjoy working on muscle, it makes up around 40% of our body weight and when we lose signi� cant mass due to old age, injury, or diseases such as cancer or muscular dystrophies our quality of life and indeed lifespan are drastically a� ected. So in a small way it’s satisfying to contribute knowledge to a research � eld that one day may help improved human wellbeing.”

Stewart learned several other valuable lessons in the Stephenson lab. It was here that he gained expertise in how to approach scienti� c questioning, to critically analyse data, present at conferences and write up research for publication. Perhaps the most valu-able lesson of all was to simply accept that a particular line of research was going nowhere and move on. “George was always ready with some wise coun-sel, for instance ‘Papers aren’t everything … they are the only thing.’ ”

After seven years working with George, someone who Stewart acknowl-edges as a brilliant scientist and also a life-long friend, he made the dif-� cult decision to move his research to UNSW and set up his own laboratory. � is period proved to be one of the most challenging in his career. “Arriv-ing to a totally empty lab, no equip-ment, no funding and the challenge of setting up made me appreciate the amount of work my two mentors had done to establish thriving groups,” he said. “I was fortunate to get both NHMRC and ARC project and equip-ment grants, which enabled me to set up the lab and employ the � rst of my post-doctoral workers and start my PhD students. Luckily this was in the 1990’s and category A project grant funding was not as competitive to get as it is nowadays for a university based academic.”

It was at UNSW that Stewart encoun-tered Professor Mark Rowe and A/Professor Michael Perry. Both have provided encouragement and guidance in relation to Stewart’s research and teaching. “It made the transition from La Trobe easier knowing that I would

be working with sta� of this

calibre. It was also upon arrival at UNSW

that I � rst met and became friendly with my long-time collaborator John Morley. He reignited my interest in the brain, which had been hibernating since my neurobiology days. Together we initiated a novel area of research looking at brain function in boys with Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy, which is the second most fatal genetic disease of humans,” says Stewart.

He is also keen to acknowledge the important work undertaken by his post-doc Stephen Chan. “Stephen has played a key role in the laboratory over the past seven years and has contrib-uted signi� cantly to my lab’s output.”

� e slog of academic advancement often times requires long hours at the computer and the bench. It wasn’t until the birth of his � rst daughter that realised he needed to � nd a better way to amalgamate his work and home life. “Because of the open ended nature of research, writing papers, grant propos-als and combining these activities with teaching and administration, I think many academics can be in danger of

Muscle Matters


slipping into an unhealthy work life balance. I certainly found this to be the case myself. I realised I was going to have to reorganise and rationalise the research aspect of my life,” said Stewart. “On the teaching side Gary Housley certainly helped to reduce my Physiology teaching load to a manage-able level.” Even with the new meas-ures in place Stewart still sometimes struggles to balance all of his compet-ing commitments. “As migrants with no relatives in Australia my wife and I have had to juggle work and parent-ing two young children between us. Obtaining the right balance is initially hard but we now have it down to a � ne art.”

Maintaining scienti� c passion and curiosity helps motivate Stewart during di� cult times. “I am still fascinated by biology and the beauty of the natu-ral world. It’s always a revelation to � nd out what appears to be simple on the surface, like a crab moving its legs, is so exquisitely intricate and complex involving processes from molecular to macro levels of organisation,” he says. You can tell that there is real joy in discovery for Stewart, in particu-lar in those unexpected and wholly surprising outcomes. “You never can tell which project, preparation or technique is going to yield the most interesting results before you actually do the experiments and publish.”

On re� ection Stewart feels that he is in a pretty good place personally and professionally. “I enjoy teaching and it means a lot that my contribution has been acknowledged by the awarding of three major prizes. In my research � eld I have been invited to write book chapters, sit on international commit-tees, visit overseas laboratories, had my work discussed in the news and hot topic sections of major journals and been an invited speaker at local and international conferences. On the administrative side of my work at UNSW I have played key roles in the development and implementation of new courses in sciences and chaired the independent learning committee during the developmental stages of the

new medical curriculum and had the opportunity to produce the skeletal muscle component for Phase 1 Ageing and Endings of the medical course,” he said. On balance this is a pretty envi-able record of achievements.

� e biggest challenge Stewart sees facing researchers today is obtaining grant funding. Despite the stated aims of government, to support the creation of new knowledge by funding the best investigator-initiated research projects in areas relevant to human health, the competitive nature of the funding means only 1:4 applications are suc-cessful (based on information provided in the NHMRC Research Funding Facts Book 2012).

On a personal level, once he has unrav-elled Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy, Stewart wouldn’t mind spending less time commuting to and from work, having a single occupancy o� ce and changing the size of tutorial groups to a maximum of � ve students per tutor. And who knows, with new technolo-gies and the advent of blending learn-ing arenas perhaps Stewart’s goals for the near future may well be realised.

Fact Box

Stewart is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Physiology. Stewart's research has been in the general area of skeletal muscle physiology. In particular his interest has been in the area of the muscu-lar dystrophies and studying the role of [Ca2+]i in the physiology and pathophysiology of skeletal muscle. Stewart's laboratory has also performed substantial work on dystrophic mdx mouse cerebel-lum dysfunction. Dystrophin, the protein missing in Duchenne Mus-cular Dystrophy, is also normally expressed in the brain. His group demonstrated that dystrophin func-tions to cluster GABAA receptors at the post synaptic density of Purkinje neurons and in its absence that amplitude of inhibitory GABA cur-rents is reduced by 50%, addition-ally; there is a 50% blunting of the Long Term Depression response at the parallel � bre/Purkinje synapse.


Julia Kiss

Ever wondered about the possibility of a zombie apocalypse?

Maybe you have already decided that it might be a good idea to get prepared in case the inevitable happens?

Well have no fear…� e Museum of Human Disease has you covered.

Developed last year and running through each school holiday of 2014, we invite everyone to come and experience the newest program to � e Museum, “Surviving a Zombie Apoca-lypse – Adventure Trail”.

With the recent popularity of zombies in movies and television like World War Z and � e Walk-ing Dead, � e Museum, being the strange and unusual place that it is, decided to ask the question “Is a zombie apocalypse actually possible?” Enter Dr Luke Hes-son, our self-proclaimed “zombie expert” whom has battled with us through this unusual yet highly

likely question. Not liking to do things by halves, this question eventually formed into the program that has seen hundreds of people of all ages � ock through the Museum doors.

� e Adventure Trail is based on a hypothetical zombie outbreak on the University of New South Wales’ cam-pus, which has led to the capture of 10 people who are displaying symptoms of infectious disease. Upon entering the “zombie zone” participants are briefed on the current situation and once given a case � le are directed to solve a number of cases by identifying the most likely cause for each infected individual.

� e program has allowed us to delve into the intricacies of a real walk-ing zombie, by utilising well known

diseases such as rabies, sleeping sick-ness, CJD and tetanus as examples of popularized “zombie symptomology”. � e program has also allowed us to ask the hard hitting questions like “Does a zombie need to go to the toilet?” and “Would a zombie like music by the Cranberries?”

� e program will be back each school holiday of 2014, and will include a number of activities including zombie makeup, dissections and adults only movie nights. Whether you a sceptic or a � rm believer, it’s better to be pre-pared than end up as zombie food… come along to the Museum and make sure you know your enemy!

Listed as one of the world’s 10 weird-est museums, the Museum of Human Disease is de� nitely one not to be missed!


A Korlimbinis

� e QIAcube uses advanced technol-ogy to process QIAGEN spin col-umns, enabling seamless integration of automated, low-throughput sample prep into the laboratory work� ow assuring fast start-up and immediate results. � e QIAcube performs fully automated processing and puri� ca-tion of genomic DNA, plasmid DNA, RNA, viral nucleic acids and proteins. It can also do DNA and RNA cleanup procedures. � e QIAcube can process up to 12 samples in one run. � e instrument is very user friendly and easy for junior researchers to use. � e user selects a preset protocol using the touchscreen and loads the plastic ware,

samples and reagents onto the workta-ble. � e user closes the instrument and starts the protocol, which provides all of the necessary commands for sample lysis and puri� cation using QIAGEN spin column kits.

In summary, the QIAcube enables you to:

• Freeupyourvaluabletime• PurifyDNA,RNAorproteins from up to 12 samples per run• Standardiseyourresultsand reduce human error• Increasesyourproductivity

If you would like to learn more about the QIACube please contact Christine Lucas.

The instrument is located in room 248 Wallace Wurth.

Custodian : Christine Lucas - [email protected]


16 Things You May Not Know About

�e book that changed my life...Franz Kafka - The Trial

Where did you grow up?Ober�ockenbach, a small village close to Heidelberg in Germany.

What is your favourite food?Cooked salmon with rice - the way my wife does it!

How do you spend your free time?

Hanging out with my family, woodworking or reading.

Favourite childhood memory?Collecting chestnuts in the forest and roasting them on the �re.

How many cities have you lived in?6 so far - Weinheim, Heidelberg, Osnabruck (all in Germany), Aberystwyth (Wales), San Diego (USA) and now Sydney.

What could you do as a child that you can't do now?Sit comfortably on a plane seat.

What is the best concert you have ever been to?VNV NationIf you could live anywhere in the world for a year, where would it be? Antarctica

Complete the statement: "I recom-mend...."The book Otherland by Tad Williams

If you could try anything and not

fail (and money was no object), what dream would you attempt?Running a medieval pub

What was the last movie you saw? The Hobbit - The Desolation of Smaug.

What do you most enjoy about your profession?That you continuously learn new things.

If you could be anyone other than yourself, who would you be...?An Inuit.

Thomas Fath

Fact Box

Dr �omas Fath is a senior lecturer in the Department of Anatomy. �omas has a research and teaching focus. His research focus is on the regulation of the cytoskeleton in injury of the nervous system and neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's Disease with a particular interest in the micro�lament system. For this we employ cell and tissue cultures which express altered levels of the actin dynamics-regulating protein tropomyosin.

What is the one thing you would really like to learn how to do? Goldsmithing

My favourite song to dance to...?'Get Up/ from Badmarsh and Shri


Congratulations to Prof Carolyn Geczy who recently was awarded the academic title of Emeritus Professor. � e conferring of this title honours the work that Carolyn has undertaken in the development of the University and recognises her distinguished academic track record.

Carolyn has been a great mentor to many people in SoMS and the broader community over many years. Below, a few of our sta� o� er their thanks

for Carolyn for her e� orts.

Nicodemus Tedla

I would like to extend my heartfelt gratitude for the

continued mentorship I received from Professor Geczy

since my appointment to SOMS in 2003 as an early career

researcher. � e career development of early

research-based sta� is a di� cult and highly competitive process. Success in competition for funding is heavily dependent on quality of the application and applicant’s personal research track

record. � is is measured largely by

writing concise and clear applications,

the number and quality of research publications and prior success in obtaining funding as well as other discipline-

related activities. Unfortunately, many early to mid-career researchers lack understanding of the criteria for development of a successful and competitive track record, or of how to present this most e� ectively when preparing a research application. � ere are no clear mechanisms for such education. I was fortunate enough to have Professor Geczy as a mentor who guided me through this di� cult process. Professor Geczy’s high intellectual calibre, incredible work ethics, tireless and unconditional support to others are priceless and highly inspirational.

Margaret MorrisI would like to add that Carolyn has had a very distinguished research career and has worked tirelessly in improving the research output of the School and Faculty.

John Hunt

Carolyn has been an outstanding member of the school, faculty and university community, and she richly deserves this latest honour. � e title “emeritus“ is not bestowed lightly and there are speci� c criteria used to evaluate a candidate including international recognition of research, leadership , and contributions to sta� development. It would not have been a di� cult decision for the committee as Carolyn has more than excelled in all seven areas. It has been my pleasure recently to talk to a number of Carolyn’s former colleagues and students. Without exception they all remarked on how their own careers had been nurtured, and their personal lives enriched, by her passion for research and her dedication to mentoring the next generation. Her current colleagues concur. Congratulations Carolyn.

Code of Honour


News In Brief

Congratulations go to Professors Ken Williams, Garry Graham and Ric Day who all reached the milestone of having over 100 research publications. �ey automatically become members of that exclusive group known as the SoMS Century Club, taking its membership from 22 sta� members to 25.

Physiology Round Up

Sta� in the department of Physiology continue to garner praise for their academic excellence.

• Rahul Mohan won the Sir Grafton Elliot-Smith student poster prize at the 34th Annual Meeting of the Australasian Neuroscience Society ("ANS").

• Taking out the Best Oral Presentation at the Dementia, Aging and Neurodegenerative Group satellite meeting of the ANS. At the same meeting Rahul Mohan won the 2nd place poster

prize.

• Ann Wong is awarded the Garnett Passe and Rodney Williams Memorial Foundation Research Fellowship which aims to enable early career scientists, physicians or surgeons to establish a research career in Otorhinolaryngology or the related �elds of biomedical science. �e four year Fellowship will support Ann to spend the next two years at the University of California San Deigo in Professor Allen Ryan’s lab, characterising biomedical mechanisms that confer intrinsic otoprotection generated by activation of the P2X2 receptor signalling pathways. Ann will embed the cochlear proteomics platform at UNSW in years 3 and 4 of the Fellowship with the overall aim of establishing a new platform in Australia for discovery of leads for treatment of hearing loss.

And �nally, the inaugural awarding of �e Mark Rowe Prize for outstanding doctoral (or masters) thesis in neurophysiology occurred at the 2014 Student Prize Giving. Gary Housley and Janet Rowe were joint presenters of the prize. �e winners of the Mark Rowe Prize were: • 2012 Anna Hudson

�esis Title: Strategies of motor

�e Molecular Pharmacology and Drug Design (MPDD) group had a visitor for 6 months during 2013/2014. Dr Huajun Luo, Associ-ate Professor of Bioengineering at the College of Chemistry & Life Science

at the �ree Gorges University in China, received a fellowship grant from the China Fellowship Council to come to Renate Gri�th’s computer laboratory on a study leave. He worked on a collaborative project with Angela

unit recruitment in human inspiratory musclesSupervisors: Dr Jane Butler & Prof Simon Gandevia

• 2013 Jocelyn Bowden�esis Title: Sensorimotor changes with age and strokeSupervisors: Dr Penelope McNulty

�e award was created as a tribute and memorial to Professor Mark Joseph Rowe, Scientia Professor of Physiology, in recognition of his contributions to neuroscience. Mark was an internationally renowned neurophysiologist who contributed substantially to the �eld of somatosensory physiology and motor control. Mark was highly regarded as a teacher and mentor who demonstrated the best of academia.

Finch on the discovery and design of novel small molecules interacting with adrenergic receptors. In particular, he prepared a number of computer-based homology models of these receptors and examined ways to optimise these models. He is currently preparing the results for publication. Huajun was a very active participant in the group and his keen and insightful questions at meetings and pleasant and helpful presence will be missed by MPDD.

International Collaboration in Pharmacology


SOM

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NOVEMBER DECEMBER JANUARY

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Terry H.Y. Lee, Ainslie Mitchell, Syd-ney Liu Lau, Hongyan An, Poornima Rajeaskariah, Valerie Wasinger, Mark Raftery, Katherine Bryant, Nicodemus Tedla

“Glycosylation in a mammalian expression system is critical for the production of functionally active leukocyte immunoglobulin-like recep-tor A3 protein” Journal of Biological Chemistry jbc.M113.478578

� is study emphasises the importance of how N-glycosylation can greatly in� uence the ligand binding and the protein functions. LILRA3 protein is shown to be heavily N-linked glyco-sylated and have 5 putative N-glyco-sylation sites. � e N-glycans derived from these sites can alter the protein biochemical characteristics. Compari-son between bacterial and mammalian expression system showed only protein derived from mammalian expression system was capable of retaining high a� nity cell surface binding. � is paper is the � rst to show the function of LILRA3 protein where it has anti-in� ammatory properties.

Johanna Elms, Kim L. Powell, Leena van Raay, Stefanie Dedeurwaerdere, Terence J. O’Brien, Margaret J. Morris

"Long-Term Valproate Treatment Increases Brain Neuropeptide Y Expression and Decreases Seizure Expression in a Genetic Rat Model of Absence Epilepsy”.PLoS ONE 8(9): e73505 � is paper is published from Johanna Elms’s Honours work from UNSW and involves a collaboration with Terence O’Brien at University of Melbourne.

� e mechanisms by which valproate, one of the most widely prescribed anti-epileptic drugs, suppresses seizures have not been fully elucidated but may involve up-regulation of neuropeptide Y (NPY). Working in a genetic epilepsy model, we demonstrated that long-term valproate treatment results in an upregulation of thalamic expression of NPY implicating this as a potential contributor to the mechanism by which valproate suppresses absence seizures.

Jade Guest, Ross Grant, Trevor A. Mori, Kevin D. Croft

“Changes in Oxidative Damage, In-� ammation and [NAD(H)] with Age in Cerebrospinal Fluid”. PLoS ONE 9(1): e85335 � is is Jade Guest’s second paper from her PhD. � e research study shows for the � rst time that Free radical damage increases in the human brain with age and that higher free radical damage and in� ammation in the CNS is as-sociated with alcohol intake and some types of dietary fats.


FEBRUARY MARCH APRIL

Rylie Flesher, Cristan Herbert and Rakesh Kumar

“Resolvin E1 promotes resolution of in� ammation in a mouse model of an acute exacerbation of allergic asthma” Clinical Science 126, 805–814.

� is is the � rst publication arising from Rylie’s PhD studies. It has been published in the highly ranked trans-lational journal Clinical Science and demonstrates for the � rst time that in a realistic model of an acute exacerbation of asthma, treatment with the pro-resolution mediator known as resolvin E1, administered after the induction of the exacerbation, can indeed acceler-ate the resolution of the in� ammatory response.

Nicholas J. Burrows, John Booth, Daina L. Sturnieks, Benjamin K. Barry

“Acute resistance exercise and pressure pain sensitivity in knee osteoarthritis: a randomised crossover trial” Osteoar-thritis and Cartilage 22(3): 407-414. � is is Nicholas Burrows’ � rst research paper from his Masters work. � e paper is published in a highly ranked clinical journal for orthopedics and provides the � rst evidence that resist-

ance training may directly in� uence pain sensation in knee osteoarthritis. Exercise, in particular resistance train-ing, is well recognised as a primary treatment for knee osteoarthritis, but the mechanisms by which exercise reduces pain and improves function are not well understood. Improved un-derstanding of these mechanisms may ultimately help to optimise exercise prescriptions and to guide the accom-panying use of analgaesic medication.

Jeremy L. Pinyon, Sherif F. Tadros, Kristina E. Froud, Ann C. Y. Wong, Isabella T. Tompson, Edward N. Craw-ford, Myungseo Ko, Renée Morris, Matthias Klugmann, Gary D. Housley

“Close-Field Electroporation Gene Delivery Using the Cochlear Implant Electrode Array Enhances the Bionic Ear” Science Translational Medicine, 6 (233): 233ra54 � e study is a proof of principle for a new type of directed gene delivery which utilises focusing of electric � elds at the cellular level to deliver genes, a process that we have termed “close-� eld” electroporation. � is research study was supported by fund-ing through an ARC Linkage project with Cochlear Ltd as industry partner. � e study showed that the cochlear implant electrode array could be used to provide targeted gene delivery with good e� ciency. We demonstrated that cells close to the cochlear implant array could be transfected with a neurotro-phin gene cassette. Expression of this brain derived neurotrophic


For more information or to send comments, suggestions, events noti� -cations and items for future editions please contact : � e School of Medical Sciences, Head of School O� ce. Tel : 02 9385 2531 or email [email protected]

Batteries are made up of heavy metals and other toxic elements, including nickel, cadmium, mercury and lead acid. It is these elements that can threaten our environment if not properly discarded or recycled.

Unfortunately batteries which end up in land� lls and incinerators leak into the environment, causing a serious health risks to humans and animals.

As a result leading members of the battery industry have joined together to initiate a battery collection and recycling scheme.

You can do your bit by dropping o� old batteries (and mobile phones) to the o� ce area of level 4 Wallace Wurth East. � e green o� ce recycling station is just inside the entry door for the o� ce area.

� ank you for using this recycling station.

Green Recycling Station in Wallace Wurth


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