What's On at UWA

Primarily on continuum mechanics problems that  arise out of  industrial contexts  where the objectives are clear cut,  and the results are usually of limited general interest.

Sometimes, however, the investigations lead to results that are both unexpected and of much broader and even fundamental interest.

 I will describe two such investigations;  one arising out of the   defense industry (a visual image inversion problem) and  the other out of the  electronics industry (a capillarity problem associated with the production of capacitors). The relevant mathematics is simple, an added bonus.

****All Welcome****

A/Prof Ros Francis is a Nuclear Medicine Physician in the Department of Nuclear Medicine / WA Positron Emission Tomography (PET) Service at Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital and has an academic appointment as Associate Professor of Molecular Imaging, UWA (School of Medicine and Pharmacology). A/Prof Francis has a particular interest in Nuclear Oncology and PET. She has a strong research interest in new tracer development, especially in mesothelioma.

The world's leading authority on MS research, he'd be embarrassed to be called Mr MS, but this would certainly befit the Professor of Neurology and HOD Clinical Neurosciences at Cambridge and Editor of Brain. Prof Alastair Compston Lecture is Visiting Professor at Royal Perth Hospital, he is an outstanding lecturer and in great demand! Join us for his Lecture on Neuromyelitis Optica, a Q. and A. session and Drinks following.

The Seminar: The current world wide accepted consensus criteria for neuropathological staging of Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s diseases (AD & PD) have been developed in his Anatomy lab in Germany (Braak stages). In the seminar, Estifanos will briefly introduce these staging systems and emphasize the current search for the preclinical stages of PD & AD.

The Speaker: Estifanos earned his medical degree from the University of Göttingen, Germany, in 1993. In Germany, he worked as a general pathologist and neuropathologist for almost three years and as clinical neuroanatomist for 12 years. He started working at the University of Queensland (School of Biomedical Sciences, Department of Anatomy & Developmental Biology) in 2009 as a senior lecturer for anatomy. His primary research interests include understanding the genetic risk profiles and the heterogeneity of the pathological and clinical features of neurodegenerative diseases (including Alzheimer’s disease and Lewy body diseases, e.g. Parkinson’s disease and dementia with Lewy bodies).

Host: Winthrop Professor Alan Harvey

The Seminar: Nanotechnology is a valuable tool for optimizing the delivery of a drug that is disadvantaged by poor in vivo solubility and specificity of drug action. In this lecture, Lee Yong will share how her laboratory has utilized nanotechnology to promote the efficacy and specificity of the anticancer drug, paclitaxel.

The Speaker: Lee Yong obtained a BSc (Pharmacy) Hons degree at the National University of Singapore and PhD degree in pharmaceutics from the University of Manchester, UK. After 15 years with the Pharmacy Department at the National University of Singapore, she joined UWA in May 2005 to teach in the Master of Pharmacy programme. Her research focuses on understanding the mechanisms and constraints of drug delivery across biological barriers, and developing methodologies to overcome these barriers. Nanotechnology is the main enabling technology for the development of drug delivery systems in her laboratory.

Launched in March 2011, The Conversation is an independent source of information, analysis and commentary from the university and research sector.

Speaker Bio: Andrew is a co-founder The Conversation. He previously edited The Age, The Observer (London), The Scotsman and Scotland on Sunday. He was Editor-in-Chief of The Big Issue (London), and he founded and edited the Sunday Herald in Scotland. He is the Asia-Pacific Director for Innovation Media.

Prof Ming-Hao Zheng is the Winthrop Professor and Director of Research at the Translational Orthopaedic Research Centre, Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital, Perth and the Associate Dean (International) of the Faculty of Medicine, Dentistry and Health Sciences, the University of Western Australia. He is also the Chung Kong Scholar Lecturing Professor and the Deputy Director of Australia-China Cooperative Research Centre for Biotherapeutics and Regenerative Medicine at the Zhejiang University, China, Director for UWA-Nanjing Bone and Joint Research Centre at Nanjing University. He has served on the editorial board for numbers of Orthopaedics and Pathology journals.

Prof Zheng completed his Bachelor of Medicine in 1983, Master of Medicine (Pathology) in 1987 in China, PhD in 1993 and Doctor of Medicine in 2000 at the University of Western Australia. Prof Zheng is a fellow of the Royal College of Pathologists and the Royal College of Pathologists of Australasia. He has focused on the development of an academic career in bone and joint research and regenerative medicine. His productivity is evidenced by the quality of publications and patents, and his ability to transform laboratory research into clinical practice. He has published over 120 peer-reviewed papers in journals including Nature Medicine, Annals of Internal Medicine, Journal of Clinical Investigation, Molecular Cellular Biology, Journal of Biological Chemistry, American Journal of Pathology and Journal of Bone and Mineral Research.

His major achievements include studies in the molecular and cellular biology of the osteoclast, clinical and laboratory evaluation of human bone allograft, development of cellscaffold technology for cartilage, tendon and bone regeneration and regulatory framework in human tissue and cellular products. His work on Giant Cell Tumour of bone (GCT) has been used by WHO for classification of bone tumours and has been recorded in the textbook “Ackermans Surgical Pathology”. He has 7 patents in the field of Orthopaedics and has introduced the concept and technology of autologous biotherapy in orthopaedics. His research results in the development of autologous stem cell and progenitor cell therapy in bone, cartilage and tendon. He has transformed the benchwork of Matrix-induced Autologous Chondrocyte Implantation (MACI) and Autologous Tencoyte Therapy (ATT) into clinical practices. In 2009, he was specially awarded by Genzyme in Boston for his leadership, commitment and dedication to the advancement of MACI. To date, more than 120 hospitals across Australia and over 8000 patients in the world have used MACI for the treatment of cartilage defects. Prof Zheng has actively supervised and nursed quality postgraduate students andpostdoctoral fellows with 21 PhD and 15 Master of Medical sciences students completing their degree in the last 15 years. Many of them have won awards at the national and international meetings for their research work and become high profile independent researchers. These include Prof Hiroshi Fujie, Prof Jiake Xu, and Asst/Prof Nathan Pavlos.

Prof Zheng is actively involved in the organisation of national and international societies in bone and cartilage research, and has held positions such as Councillor of the Australia & New Zealand Bone & Mineral Research Society (1999 - 2001), Treasurer/Secretary of the Australia & New Zealand Orthopaedic Research Society (2000 – 2003), member of the scientific committee of the International Bone and Mineral Society (2003), Chair of the Organising Committee of the Australian Biotherapeutics & Tissue Regeneration Forum (2003) and the International Cartilage Repair Society (2004), Session Chair of the 6th Combined Orthopaedic Meeting (2007) in Hawaii and The BIO 2008 in San Diego. Prof Zheng is also the Conveyor of the four Australian Biotherapeutic & Regenerative Medicine Forums. He is currently a member of the Therapeutics Goods Committee (Biologics) at the Therapeutics Goods Administration (TGA) appointed by the Minister of Health in Canberra.

The II International Congress of Environmental Medicine will have its focus towards recognising those there environmental factors which causes diseases to individual beings and that it can be diagnosed, treated and prevented

Join us for our II International Congress of Environmental Medicine – November 19-20 - Sao Paulo – Brazil

Summit your abstract until 23/10

The Seminar: Mortality from breast cancer is almost entirely the result of invasion and metastasis of neoplastic cells; therefore, understanding gene products involved in breast cancer metastasis is an important research goal. Prompted by a recent study showing increased expression of a DEAD-box family member, DDX20, in microarray data from lymphoma patients, a total of 194 breast tissue samples (97 breast cancers and 97 paired normal breast tissue) were retrieved. A high proportion of specimens show positive DDX20 (2+, 3+) expression in the tumor cores and negative (1+, 0) in their paired normal cores (p<0.001). Since positive MMP9 expression is closely associated with poor prognosis, same cohort was stained for MMP9. When grouping patients with positive DDX20 expression to MMP9 expression, Kaplan-Meier correlation analysis show patients with positive DDX20 and MMP9 expression have poorer survival outcomes (p=0.029). To explore a link between DDX20 and MMP9, we screened a panel of breast cancer cell lines for DDX20 and MMP9 expression. Interestingly, highly metastatic cell lines such as MDA-MB-231, BT549, and Hs578t have high expression levels of DDX20 and MMP9. Herein, we will present data for a functional consequence to decreased DDX20 in metastatic breast cancer cells. Together, our study identifies DDX20 as a new prognostic marker that is needed to identify patients who are at the highest risk for developing metastases, which might enable oncologists to begin tailoring treatment strategies to individual patients. This work is supported by grants from National Medical Research Council of Singapore (Grant R-713-000-119-275) and Cancer Science Institute of Singapore, Experimental Therapeutics I Program (Grant R-713-001-011-271) to APK.

The Speaker: Dr. Alan Prem Kumar earned his Ph.D. from University of North Texas, USA. From his Ph.D. work, he discovered a novel regulatory protein, PyrR for the pyrimidine biosynthetic pathway in Pseudomonas. Dr. Kumar then pursued Postdoctoral training in Cancer Research at Sidney Kimmel Cancer Center, California, USA. He was awarded a Postdoctoral Fellowship for his work on the role of nuclear receptors. Dr. Kumar relocated back to Singapore to join Cancer Science Institute of Singapore, National University of Singapore as an independent Principal Investigator to continue on his expertise on nuclear receptor and cancer pharmacology. His current research interest includes the role of nuclear receptors involved in the regulation of target genes and to elucidate mechanism and associated signal pathways. Another area of interest is aimed at developing new derivative drugs with hopefully fewer side effects. Over the years, Dr. Kumar and his laboratory have forged relationships with scientists in cancer research and with cancer advocacy groups in Singapore.

Host: E/Professor Dharmarajan – PH) 6488 2981

What research can be performed at a synchrotron? What are WA scientists achieving at synchrotrons? What opportunities are there for cutting edge research in MEDICAL AND HEALTH SCIENCES, and for WA's INDUSTRY?

This one-day symposium, 23rd November at UWA's University Club, is suited for novices and experts alike, with focussed sessions aimed at

* HEALTH PROFESSIONALS AND RESEARCHERS *

* ACADEMIC RESEARCHERS *

* INDUSTRY RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT *

covering topics including:

* Medical therapy * Imaging for Cystic Fibrosis gene therapy development * Iron distribution in the heart * Structural Biology * Metalloproteins * Imaging of fossils * Forensics applications * Photoelectron spectroscopy * Corrosion Science * Meteorite studies * Precious metal ore depostion *

Prof David Parsons, Women’s and Children’s Hospital, Adelaide; Dr Mel Lintern, CSIRO Exploration and Mining; Prof Keith Nugent, University of Melbourne and Prof Andrew Peele, Latrobe University; plus 9 WA speakers

Come and find out how the Australian Synchrotron can revolutionise YOUR research.

There is no charge, but registration is essential. RSVP to [email protected] by Fri 11 November 2011.

T cells are the shock troops of the human immune system – they can be ordered to kill what they recognise. Remarkably nearly every T cell is uniquely different to each other due to mutations that occur during the synthesis of their T cell receptor (TCR). It is the highly specific binding of a T cell receptor to a molecular shape expressed on the surface of other cells, that mediates their function. To study the development and specificity of an immune response to a new immune target we are endeavouring to determine the structure of the TCR's of the T cells involved. This talk will describe the approach taken to select the reactive T cells from a donor's blood cells and then grow from them clones. In the process amplifying in culture a single T cell into a bulk population of millions, thus enabling subsequent sequence analysis and functional assays.

This unit focuses on the application of epidemiologic research principles to questions relating to clinical diagnosis, prognosis and the efficacy of therapeutic interventions.

This five-day unit considers: * design, conduct and analysis of clinical trials * non-experimental study designs in the evaluation of clinical outcomes * systematic reviews and meta-analysis * evaluation of diagnostic tests * economic analysis * ethical issues in clinical research

Within an evidence-based practice framework, emphasis will be placed on the critical appraisal of the scientific research evidence that underpins clinical practice (from primary studies to clinical practice guidelines).

Overall, the course aims to improve the participant's knowledge of clinical research methods and to develop a critical approach to the incorporation of research into clinical care decisions. In addition to formal lectures and 'hands-on' tutorials, the course will promote discussion and debate about clinical research and the sharing of clinical research experiences.

One of the outcomes of the unit will be an increased level of competence in preparing a competitive research grant proposal. As such participants will be required to work within a multidisciplinary research team to develop a (hypothetical) clinical research proposal, from the refinement of the research question, to study design, data collection, statistical analysis, ethical issues and budget.

This five-day unit will consist of a combination of lectures, small-group tutorials, practical demonstrations, discussion and ‘hands-on’ experience in research proposal development.

In preparation for the teaching week, you will be sent pre-reading on 18 November 2011.

Who should attend? Health professionals and health researchers interested in gaining a better understanding of clinical research methods and critical appraisal of the scientific literature related to clinical practice.

Please note: this is a full unit with associated enrolment and fee requirements. Please visit our website for more details.

This course is designed for those who have no previous experience of R or similar programming style packages. A basic course outline is given here: Introduction to R: How to install R on your computer; basic R commands, how to use and understand the R help pages. Data: Reading in data and data manipulation; summarising data; basic statistical analysis and fitting linear models. Graphics and Output: Basic plotting commands and how to customise your plots; how to export your plots and output in a user-friendly format. Functions: writing simple functions and flow control structures.

On behalf of the Organizing Committee, we invite you to participate in the inaugural Liver Down Under Conference, being held from Monday 28th November to Friday 2nd December 2011 in Perth, WA. This conference will be a major international meeting on Liver Research to be held in Australia and has attracted many of the top international liver, cancer, stem cell and tissue regeneration researchers, who have already indicated they will attend. This meeting will be similar in format to the FASEB Summer Conferences, specifically the liver disease meeting which is held biannually at Snowmass, Colorado, USA. The meeting will have strong international and national scientific content. Prof Andras Nagy, Mount Sinai Hospital, Toronto, CA, is the plenary speaker (see http://www.lunenfeld.ca/researchers/nagy) and he will speak on “Potential applications utilising embryonic stem cells and induced pluripotent stem cells in treating liver disease”. We have an additional 15 international and 7 national invited speakers who are attending the meeting. Please go to the following website (http://liver.asnevents.com.au/) for further detail, list of invited speakers and to register for a day or for the entire meeting.

The cellular redox hub integrates information from metabolism and the environment to fine-tune plant growth and defence in relation to biotic and abiotic challenges and developmental requirements. Perturbations in cellular redox homeostasis have a decisive input into transcriptional control within the cell nucleus.

While it has long been known that oxidants and antioxidants exert a strong influence on plant growth and defence, little information has been available concerning the precise functions of each of the components, or the interactions between redox signalling pathways and plant hormone signalling pathways. New insights have recently been gained into why leaves and other plant organs accumulate very high levels of ascorbate, particularly in relation to how this vitamin interacts with the signalling pathways of the stress hormone abscisic acid.

Similarities in the redox control of cell proliferation are observed in animals and plants. Findings about the role of glutathione in both kingdoms highlight the importance of redox processes in almost every aspect of plant biology, and provide a better understanding of how redox regulation plays a fundamental role in plant performance and resilience.

Few species can exist without interacting with others. When one species, such as the human species today, multiplies quickly it inevitably interferes with the food or water supply of others and encroaches on their habitats. By doing so it may damage or destroy some of the very relationships on which it itself depends for survival. In practical terms this means that when local or national questions arise about how land should be used (e.g. whether a forested area should be used perhaps for agriculture or housing), although the owner of the property has a financial interest, the wider community has an interest too because it will to a greater or lesser extend be affected by the environmental consequences of any changes. However, environmental relationships are complex and imperfectly understood.

Attempts have been made to give weight to wider interests in land use by giving cash values to values to ‘natural capital’ so that they can be judged against conventional commercial value. Most recently this has been done for the UK in the National Ecosystem Assessment (http://uknea.unep-wcmc.org/Resources/tabid/82/Default.aspx) and the UK Government has indicated that it supports this approach.

It is intended that rather than a lecture, this should be a discussion seminar with an introduction of around twenty minutes followed by a wide-ranging discussion of the issues.

Bio,

Ron Oxburgh FRS (Lord Oxburgh of Liverpool) trained originally as a geologist and has worked as an academic, a civil servant and in business. He has taught and researched at Oxford, Cambridge, Caltech and Stanford and served as President of Queens’ College Cambridge.

Between 1987 and 1993 he was Chief Scientific Adviser to the Ministry of Defence and from 1993 to 2001 Rector of Imperial College. He was non-executive Chairman of Shell Transport and Trading until the Company merged with Royal Dutch Petroleum to form Royal Dutch Shell in 2005.

He is currently President of the Carbon Capture and Storage Association and Chairman of 2OC and GEO – small greentec startups. He is a former Chairman of the Trustees of the Natural History Museum and of the House of Lords Select Committee on Science and Technology. He is Foreign member of the US, Australian and German Academies of Science.



****All Welcome****

Come along to the School of Population Health Postgraduate Course information sessions. We'll present information about the degrees below and will have course experts on hand to answer all your questions.

- Master of Health Professional Education (4.30pm) - Empower yourself as an educator in the health professions by developing and enhancing your teaching and research skills.

- Master of Public Health (5.30pm) - Gain a leadership role and an understanding of public health and the latest research methods.

- Master of Nursing Science (5.30pm) - build on your undergraduate degree in any field and become eligible to qualify as a Registered Nurse.

- Master of Social Work (5.30pm) - build on your undergraduate degree in a relevant discipline and become an accredited Social Worker.

- Master of Nursing Research (5.30pm) - A degree for Registered Nurses to gain a solid grounding in clinical research methods and develop skills to design, conduct and lead clinical research.

- Master of Public Health (by Research) and PhD (5.30pm) - World-class research training is available with top researchers in a wide range of health-related fields. Conduct research on a topic you're passionate about.

Periodic magnetic nanostructures are attracting considerable interest because of their unique properties and potential in applications such as ultra-high density bit patterned media, logic devices and non-volatile memory. Recently, there has been a growing interest aimed at the fundamental understanding of lateral periodic magnetic composites, which have been conceived as the magnetic counterpart of a photonic crystal, with spin waves acting as the information carrier. Such periodic magnetic composites are referred to as "magnonic crystals" (MC) with unique properties that are not found in homogenous magnetic nanostructures. The first part of this talk will focus on the use of deep ultra-violet lithography technique in synthesizing coupled periodic magnetic nanostructures of varying geometrical parameters over a very large area. We have used resolution enhancement techniques to fabricate arrays of magnetic nanostructures with lateral dimensions and inter-element spacing below the conventional resolution limit of optical lithography tools [1]. The second part of the talk will discuss our work on high quality bi-component magnonic crystals [2]. The last part of the talk will focus on results of our recent systematic investigation of both the static and dynamic properties of MCs using magneto-optical Kerr effect measurements, magnetic force microscopy and broadband ferromagnetic resonance spectroscopy in collaboration with Prof. Mikhail Kostylev at the University of Western Australia [3]. [1] A. O. Adeyeye, N. Singh, Journal of Physics D-Applied Physics-Topical Review, 41,153001 (2008). [2] Z. K. Wang, V. L. Zhang, H. S. Lim, S. C. Ng, M. H. Kuok, S. Jain, A. O. Adeyeye, Applied Physics Letters, 94, 083112 (2009) and ACS-Nano,4(2) , 643 (2010). [3] J. Ding, M. Kostylev, and A. O. Adeyeye Physical Review Letters 107,047205 (2011) and J. Ding, M. Kostylev, and A. O. Adeyeye Physical Review B 84, 054425 (2011)

World records in athletic events can serve as physiological experiments in nature. By considering how the marathon record has changed over time it is possible to integrate ideas about oxygen consumption, running economy, and the "lactate threshold" and tell a coherent story about the limits of human endurance performance. Importantly, this physiological narrative raises questions for future physiology studies and also highlights important sociological issues for those interested in exercise science.

Health informatics is a relatively new scientific discipline that incorporates knowledge from biomedicine, computer science, information science, psychology, business and other fields.

It deals with the systematic processing of data, information and knowledge in health in order to improve decision making. It is both multi-disciplinary and inter-disciplinary.

With ever-increasing complexity of health care and pressures on health professionals to do more with less, health informatics principles and information technologies are becoming more important. Moreover, the storage, processing and communication of health information directly affect the quality of delivered health care.

Course outline This course provides an overview of this broad field with an emphasis on fundamental principles as well as health information technologies. It teaches important concepts in health informatics and computing, including: modelling of health, communication theory, information retrieval, medical decision making, terminology and standards, evaluation, ethics, computer hardware and software.

It also examines applications of health informatics such as electronic medical records, clinical decision support systems and telemedicine.

This is a five-day course consisting of lectures, small group tutorials and computer lab work. In preparation for the teaching week, you will be sent pre-reading on 2 December 2011.

Who should attend? Health informatics is short of specifically trained individuals nationally and globally. This course provides the foundation for those who wish to begin a career in health informatics. It will also appeal to health care and information technology people who wish to cross over into health informatics. It will be informative to anyone who has a curiosity about this emerging and diverse field.

Please note: this is a five day unit with associated enrolment and fee requirements. Please visit our website for full information.