What's On at UWA

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.

Unfortunately this event has been cancelled.



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Lectures will supported by intensive use of case studies of recent national and international issues and the following topics will be covered

• historical, current and emerging perspectives of ecological change and disease

• health perspectives of indigenous cultures and the environment • health consequences of human population growth, urbanisation and industry

• global processes and health, including the effects of climate change, biodiversity loss and extinction • environmental change and infectious disease ecology

• the future for Australia’s ecosystems and human communities.

Ecology and Health - background: In recent decades it has become apparent that many emerging health problems cannot be solved using ‘traditional’ disease models alone. We require broader approaches to analyse interactions between humans and environmental factors, often drawing on the science of ecology and environmental sciences.

The Ecology and Health group is committed to providing teaching and research training in the broader questions and solutions implicit in an ecology and health approach. Together with the familiar areas of interest in the environmental health arena - impacts on health from water, soil, food and air contamination – our approach also focuses on examining the changes in health that may result from major ecological shifts, including urbanisation, loss of food and water resources, bioinvasion, climatic events and other environmental disturbances in a world out of balance.

For 2011 the Ecology and Health unit will be taught in combination with the special topic of Medical Geology. This component can also be done as a self-contained three-day unit for professional development and is also described in Events.

Please note that this is a 6-point postgraduate unit and fees and enrolment requirements apply. Please visit our website for full information and links.

Unfortunately this event has been cancelled.



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Offering an introduction to the emerging discipline of medical geology, this unit focuses on the origin, distribution and fate of geological/geochemical agents in the environment and their impact of human health. It provides a multi-disciplinary grounding in medical geology theory and practice, drawing on biomedical, geological/geochemical and toxicological disciplines to offer an integrated view of the entire field. After exploring the origins and development of Medical Geology, the unit examines the metals and other geogenic agents that impact on human health and disease. The unit also provides an analytical framework by which to assess and develop interventions, illustrated by practical examples of current issues. The following topics will be covered: • sources, transport and fate of geological agents in the environment • trace elements in environmental health and disease • foundations of toxicology and environmental pathology • health impacts of natural geological processes.

Medical geology - background The human body is affected in many ways by the toxic elements, metal ions and minerals on our planet. Medical geology encompasses issues such as the effects of deficiency or excess exposure of trace elements and minerals; inhalation of ambient and anthropogenic mineral dusts; transportation, modification and concentration of earth materials/compounds; and exposure to radionuclides, microbes and pathogens in a geological setting.

Medical geology is a major emerging topic which defines and explores the impacts of geologic materials and processes on animal and human health. Based on collaboration among geologists and earth scientists, environmental scientists, toxicologists, epidemiologists and medical specialists, the field aims to characterise the properties of geological processes and agents, the dispersal of geologic material and the effects on human populations.

Teaching team A/Professor Angus Cook (SPH UWA); Professor Philip Weinstein (UniSA); Professor Bob Finkelman (formerly with the U.S. Geological Survey, now University of Texas at Dallas); Dr Karin Ljung (Institute of Environmental Medicine (IMM) at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm); Dr Maria Kippler (IMM, Karolinska Institute); and Dr Renee Gardnew (IMM, Karolinska Institute).

Fees apply: please visit our website for more details.

The National Youth Science Forum is a two weeks in January program of events for students about to enter Year 12 and who are considering going on to a tertiary education in the sciences. The Forum is run in three sessions: two in Canberra and one in Perth.

Selection of participants for the Forum is coordinated by Rotary International and is undertaken by Rotarians, members of the scientific community including teachers, and former NYSF students. Selection is competitive, so the students that attend NYSF are some of the brightest young minds in the country.

The Forum aims to expose the students not only to the different career options in the sciences, but also to the choices of tertiary institutions they can attend to obtain the degree that enables them to embark on their new career.

The dynamic inventor of the vaccine Nanopatch, Prof. Mark Kendall, will talk about the development and enormous potential of this revolutionary technology for vaccine delivery. You can also explore the Incredible Inner Space exhibition, which includes an amazing microscope image of the Nanopatch.

The Australian Microscopy & Microanalysis Research Facility is proud to present this public lecture and exhibition as part of the joint Australian Conference on Microscopy & Microanalysis, Asia-Pacific Microscopy Conference and the 2012 International Conference on Nanoscience and Nanotechnology.

Where: the Riverview Lecture Room at the Perth Convention Exhibition Centre When: 6.00–7.30pm 6th Feb 2012.

It is free and booking is not required

Professor Duarte is Director of the Oceans Institute at The University of Western Australia and Research Professor with the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC) at the Mediterranean Institute for Advanced Studies (IMEDEA) in Mallorca, Spain. His research focuses on understanding the effects of global change in aquatic ecosystems, both marine and freshwater. He has conducted research across Europe, South-East Asia, Cuba, México, USA, Australia, the Amazonia, the Arctic, the Southern Ocean, and the Atlantic, Indian and Pacific oceans, spanning most of the marine ecosystem types, from near-shore to the deep sea.

The course is designed for people with little or no knowledge of statistics. It will be spread over three days covering material ranging from means and standard deviations to simple linear regression, and basic ANOVA. Some basic categorical data analysis will be included with the emphasis throughout being placed on applications rather than theory. The statistical package SPSS will be used to illustrate ideas demonstrated, however this course is aimed at enabling an understanding of basic statistics.

Registration is available online http://scg.maths.uwa.edu.au/?id=347 .

Nina V. Fedoroff received her PhD in Molecular Biology from the Rockefeller University, and has served on the faculties of the Carnegie Institution of Washington, the Johns Hopkins University and the Pennsylvania State University, where she was the Director of the Biotechnology Institute and the founding Director of the Huck Institutes of the Life Sciences. Fedoroff has published two books and more than 140 papers in scientific journals. She is a member of several academies, including the US National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Among her awards is a 2006 National Medal of Science, the highest honor awarded to US scientists. Fedoroff served as the Science and Technology Adviser to the Secretary of State and to the Administrator of the US Agency for International Development (USAID) from 2007 to 2010. She is an Evan Pugh Professor at Penn State, a member of the External Faculty of the Santa Fe Institute and Distinguished Professor of the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) in Saudi Arabia. She is also President of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS).

Professor Anderson's current work is focussed on defence molecules produced by plants for protection against insect pests and pathogens.. More Info Available

The Australian Society for Microbiology and the Australian Society for Antimicrobials are pleased to support a visit by Dr Robert Skov. Dr Robert Skov is the Head of the Danish National reference laboratory for Staphylococci and is a physician specialising in Clinical Microbiology. His research has focused on antibiotic resistance and epidemiology of Staphylococci. He will give a talk on methicillan-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) and how this impacts on clinical practise. The general public and students are welcome to attend.The meeting will be accompanied by food and drinks. No RSVP required. NOTE: Parking is free after 5pm at the Medical and Dentistry Library which is adjacent to the venue.

The Seminar: A large body of work has been produced in the laboratory of Prof. Newsholme detailing the importance of amino acids to insulin secretion. While long-term exposure to high glucose induces oxidative stress in beta cells, conflicting results have been published regarding the impact of ROS on acute glucose exposure and their role in GSIS. Although beta cells are considered to be particularly vulnerable to oxidative damage, as they express relatively low levels of some peroxide-metabolizing enzymes such as catalase and glutathione peroxidase, other less known glutathione-based antioxidant systems are expressed in beta cells at higher levels. Specific interactions between RNS and ROS may be the cause of the vulnerability of pancreatic beta-cells to oxidative damage. While this presentation will provide background information as to the importance of metabolic integration of nutritional and endocrine signals in the beta cell for insulin secretion, the emerging role of amino acid availability for glutathione synthesis and for the maintenance of beta cell function and viability during periods of metabolic disturbance will be described.

The Speaker: Prof. Philip Newsholme was educated at the University of Birmingham and University of Oxford, UK. He then was involved in Postdoctoral training at the Department of Biological Chemistry, University of California, Davis, CA, USA and Department of Clinical Biochemistry, University of Cambridge, UK under the supervision of Prof Donal Walsh and Prof Nick Hales, respectively. Philip Newsholme moved to University College Dublin, Ireland in 1993 to take up a lectureship in Biochemistry and where he set up a research team investigating nutrient, endocrine and immune regulation of insulin secretion and also metabolic adaptions to exercise in healthy and diabetic individuals. This area of research is critical to understanding the pathophysiology of Type-2 diabetes. Philip was promoted to the position of Associate Professor of Metabolic Science in 2007 and was appointed to the Position of Head of Biochemistry in UCD Dublin in September 2008. Philip Newsholme moved to take up the position of Professor and Head of School, Biomedical Sciences, Curtin University, Perth WA, in September 2011. He also collaborates with colleagues in industry via Food for Health Ireland (FHI) and also collaborates with scientists in AstraZeneca (Manchester, UK). Prof. Newsholme is hoping to develop collaborations with companies in Australia, working in the areas of metabolic health and nutrition.

All welcome to attend the School of Pathology & Laboratory Medicine 2012 Seminar Series (RPH). On a weekly basis we have local/guest speakers presenting to a wide audience typically in the fields of immunology, molecular biology and cancer related research. This week we are privileged to have Professor Arunasalam Dharmarajan from the School of Anatomy and Human Biology, UWA present on "“Secreted Frizzled Related Protein 4 (sFRP4), Wnt signalling and Angiogenesis”. Series are sponsored by Life Technologies and light refreshments are provided. For further inquiries please contact using the provided email. Look forward to seeing you there!