Dean's Newsletter - August 2007

This monthly newsletter aims to update you with some of the activities within the Medical School. In this issue:

Summer Research program awarded by Carrick
Our Summer Research Scholarship program, led by Professor David Handelsman and Ms Joanne Elliott has been recognised by the Carrick Institute for "creating a unique opportunity for undergraduate students to experience genuine biomedical research in a state-of-the-art research environment with world class researchers".

While David and Joanne are the public face of the scheme, I would like to acknowledge here the role that our researchers have played in this program in creating a stimulating and diverse range of projects. We hope that with this award, our Summer Scholarship program will attract even larger numbers of quality candidates for the program and will result in more research students for the Medical School. Thank you all for your participation in this award winning program.

Eureka for Alex Barratt
Congratulations go to Associate Professor Barratt for winning her second consecutive Pfizer Eureka Award for Health and Medical Research Journalism. Alex won the award for her two-part radio series, Facing the Evidence, which was broadcast on ABC Radio National’s Health Report in September 2006.

Selection for our 2008 Medical Program students
Our admissions team have been working hard to identify the next intake of Medical Program students with interviews conducted recently in Vancouver and Singapore. Indications are that both quality and diversity of international candidates are up.

This year our program is attracting the highest proportion of local candidates with overall GAMSAT scores 60 or over. Eighty percent of applications to our program met this criterion with Melbourne and UQ at 72% and 69% respectively. In addition, application and interview numbers are up for Singapore, a market that we have been focussing on in order to diversify the international student intake.

GerMANY Innovations – Seymour Centre 11-12 September
GerMANY INNOVATIONS is a university-wide showcase which aims to bring German industry together with academic staff and students. Health (Healthy Minds, Healthy Bodies and Biotechnology), is one of the main themes and so I urge you to take part, make your students aware of the event and perhaps even take them along.

There is opportunity for partnerships with the best of German companies, eg Siemens, Carl Zeiss, Bayer, Braun, Fresenius etc. Companies such as these are offering our students internships and work experience and some are offering research scholarships. Potential collaborations are already being explored with Alan Cass, from the George Institute and Fresenius Medical Care on models of management of kidney disease.

This is a great opportunity for us to engage more with industry and at the same time to provide real benefits to our students. For more information contact Diané Ranck 93514409 or see www.usyd.edu.au

Investment in Royal North Shore Hospital
The University recently completed negotiations with NSW Health for its $30 million investment in the Research and Education Building at RNSH. The building is already in progress and this investment will enable the majority of researchers at RNSH to be housed in first-class facilities. A celebration of this event will be hosted by Professor Michael Field on 13 September 2007.