After 160 years, it’s time to throw away the needle and syringe
Nanopatch starts clinical trials in Brisbane, with Cuba next

Rocket scientist Mark Kendall (UQ) reinvents vaccination and wins $25,000 CSL Young Florey Medal

Press materials available:

• Media release and backgrounder below
• Full profile here
• Video on YouTube
• HD footage (with and without sound)
• Photos of Mark and his technology
• Photos from the award night

The 2016 CSL Young Florey Medal was presented at the Association of Australian medical Research Institutes (AAMRI) dinner at on Wednesday 9 November in the Great Hall, Parliament House, Canberra

• Professor Mark Kendall helped create a small rocket for vaccine delivery.
• Then he invented a radically simpler concept that could replace the needle and syringe we’ve been using for 160 years.
• A small square of silicon with 20,000 microscopic spikes delivers vaccines directly to the skin’s immune cells.
• It’s painless, requires a fraction of the dose, doesn’t need refrigeration, and eliminates needle phobia.
• Now human clinical trials are underway in Brisbane, and the WHO is planning a polio vaccine trial in Cuba in 2017.

[click to continue…]

The ageing brain can repair itself

National honour for pioneer who found brain stem cells and is now waking them up with exercise

Professor Perry Bartlett from the Queensland Brain Institute at UQ received the 2015 CSL Florey Medal for his discoveries that have transformed our understanding of the brain, and for his leadership of neuroscience in Australia.

Media opportunities

Perry is available for interview in Canberra on Wednesday 11 and Thursday 12 November

The award was presented by Health Minister the Hon. Sussan Ley on Wednesday in the Great Hall, Parliament House, Canberra

[click to continue…]

National honour for pioneer who found brain stem cells and is now waking them up with exercise

Media release

Full profile, photos, and HD footage available at: www.scienceinpublic.com.au/floreymedal

The award was presented by Health Minister the Hon. Sussan Ley on Wednesday 11 November in the Great Hall, Parliament House, Canberra

• Professor Perry Bartlett broke the dogma that the adult brain can’t change and regenerate
• He built the Queensland Brain Institute to expand our knowledge of what the brain can do
• Now he’s starting a trial to put people with dementia on treadmills, in the hope that their neurons will regrow
• Perry  will receive the 2015 CSL Florey Medal at the Association of Australian Medical Research Institutes (AAMRI) Dinner in Parliament House for his discoveries that have transformed our understanding of the brain, and for his leadership of neuroscience in Australia.

[click to continue…]

Professor Perry Bartlett is putting people with dementia on treadmills. He has already reversed dementia and recovered spatial memories in mice through exercise. During the next year he’ll find out if exercise will have the same impact on people with dementia. Then he’ll look at depression.

Underpinning these projects is the idea that the brain is constantly changing and that learning, memory, mood and many other brain functions are, in part, regulated by the production of new neurons. When Perry started exploring the brain in 1977, the mature brain was regarded as static and unchangeable. He challenged this dogma and his work has led to a transformation in our understanding of the brain. [click to continue…]

Health Minister Sussan Ley, CSL Florey Medal winner Professor Perry Bartlett, and AIPS Board Member Jennelle Kyd. (Photo credit: Lorna Sim)

[click to continue…]

Saving young lives by the million

Professor Ruth Bishop, 2013 CSL Florey Medallist

By their third birthday, just about every child in the world has had a rotavirus infection. Every day about 1200 children die from it; half a million children every year. That’s changing. We’re fighting back thanks to a discovery made in 1973 by a quiet Melbourne researcher—this year’s winner of the 2013 CSL Florey Medal.

That was when Ruth Bishop, Brian Ruck, Geoffrey Davidson and Ian Holmes at the Royal Children’s Hospital and the University of Melbourne’s microbiology department found a virus, now known as rotavirus. Until the middle of the last decade, it put about 10,000 Australian children in hospital each year with acute gastroenteritis. In the next decade, as a direct result of their research, millions of young lives will be saved.

[click to continue…]

Australian bionic ear pioneer Professor Graeme Clark will receive the CSL Florey Medal tonight in the presence of 90 of his peers at the 2011 Association of Australian Medical Research Institute’s annual dinner in the Mural Hall at Parliament House Canberra.

High resolution images of Graham Clark can be found here. [click to continue…]

Here are photos, for press use, of the CSL Florey medal winner for 2011. Videos and images of the presentation will be available after Monday.

[click to continue…]