Around the Precinct – 21 October 2021

This week is Alfred Health Week, an annual celebration of all the pioneering research that happens across our eight member organisations. Read on to find out more about this year’s award winners, and get to know some of our researchers in our first ever Video Showcase

Today also marks the final day of Melbourne’s sixth lockdown. But as we prepare to open up and enjoy some new freedoms, attention turns to our neighbours in the Pacific and the COVID crisis unfolding in Papua New Guinea as they battle a surge in cases and vaccine hesitancy.

Elsewhere on the precinct, several partners have been successful in securing funding from the Heart Foundation to tackle a range of cardiovascular conditions, and a novel treatment for heart failure developed by Baker scientists has been acquired by a European biopharma company.

Baker Heart and Diabetes Institute

A European biopharma company has acquired the global rights of a novel treatment for people with late-stage heart failure developed by Baker scientists.

Alfred Research Alliance

Congratulations to winners of inaugural Scientific Abstract Competition
Each year during Alfred Health Week, a series of prizes are awarded to recognise the excellent research undertaken on the precinct during the previous 12 months. This year, in the absence of the usual poster display in the corridors of The Alfred, prizes were based on abstracts submitted in our inaugural Scientific Abstract Competition.
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2021 Alfred Research Alliance publication prize winners announced
The winners of this year’s Alfred Research Alliance publication prizes were announced at today’s Alfred Health Week keynote address, with prizes going to two researchers from Baker Heart and Diabetes Institute and one researcher from Monash University’s Central Clinical School.
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Alfred Health

Major upgrades to The Alfred’s Hyperbaric chamber complete
The Alfred’s Hyperbaric chamber has undergone a significant refurbishment, allowing the state-wide service to continue to provide world-class care.
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Monash University

Monash researchers receive Heart Foundation funding
Fourteen Monash Medicine, Nursing and Health Sciences researchers and PhD students have received funding from the Heart Foundation to conduct research that investigates the cause, prevention, and treatment of heart disease, stroke and related conditions.
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Baker Heart and Diabetes Institute

Honouring a pioneering diabetes researcher
Top Melbourne researcher and clinician, Professor Paul Zimmet AO has been recognised in the American Diabetes Association’s international medical journal, Diabetes Care, for his extraordinary contributions to the field of diabetes.
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Five-year gender equity fellowship to champion senior women in science
For a second time, the Baker Heart and Diabetes Institute is offering a prestigious five-year Alice Baker and Eleanor Shaw Gender Equity Fellowship for a senior female researcher, with the position now being advertised in top scientific journal, Nature.
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Grant success to deliver new treatments for heart disease
New Heart Foundation funding will help Baker Institute researchers test novel treatments for the most common causes of heart disease, including repurposed arthritis and cancer drugs. Baker Institute scientists have secured several prestigious research fellowships and grants, worth more than $1.2 million, announced by the Heart Foundation today.
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Translating pioneering research into the clinic
A European biopharma company has acquired the global rights of a novel treatment for people with late-stage heart failure developed by scientists at the Baker Heart and Diabetes Institute.
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Burnet Institute

PNG is back on the brink of a Delta variant disaster
Complacency and vaccine hesitancy have left PNG wide open to delta infection, Professor Brendan Crabb says in the Australian Financial Review.
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PNG calls for international help amid Delta surge
Hospitals in Papua New Guinea under strain as country battles COVID-19 surge and vaccine hesitancy.
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Victorian lockdown to end 21 October: updated Burnet modelling
Updated Burnet mathematical modelling and accelerated vaccination levels a key driver guiding changes to Victoria’s roadmap.
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