Dean’s Newsletter – 6 July 2009

Welcome to Professor Carol Armour who is joining us as Associate Dean (Career Development) in the Faculty of Medicine on a part-time basis. Her first project will be helping early career researchers who have NHMRC applications in the current round with their rejoinders.


Congratulations to…

Clinical Associate Professor Paul Roach (Head of the Department of Nuclear Medicine at Royal North Shore Hospital) and colleagues on their successes at the recent Annual Scientific Meeting of the Australian and New Zealand Society of Nuclear Medicine. Clinical Associate Professor Dale Bailey won the ANSTO prize (for innovation in research or clinical practice in the field of Nuclear Medicine by a scientist) and Dr Denis Gradinscak (the Department’s registrar in 2008) won the Australian and New Zealand Association of Physicians in Nuclear Medicine Prize for the best registrar presentation.

Professor John Simes, Director of the NHMRC Clinical Trails Centre. John, who in the 1980s spent three years at Harvard School of Public Health, completing a Master of Science in Biostatistics and undertaking research for a subsequent doctorate in medicine has just been awarded the Harvard Medical School’s Department of Biostatistics 2009 Harvard Distinguished Alum Award.

Dr Kerrie McDonald who heads the Cerebral Tumour Research Group at the Kolling Institute. Kerrie has been awarded the Hoshina Award for Young Investigators at the Third Quadrennial Meeting of the World Federation of Neuro-Oncology meeting in Japan.

Dr Dilhani Bandaranayake of our Office for Global Health. Dilhani has been awarded an Endeavour Executive Award from DEEWR which allowed her to undertake a 6 week professional and personal development placement in Timor Leste.

Professor Trevor Parmenter and colleagues on their successful application to the University’s Institute of Social Sciences for a research development grant under its Applied Projects Program to examine ‘Literacy Development in Children with Developmental Disabilities’ - $45,000 has been provided to support this project.

Professor Rebecca Mason and colleagues on their successful application to the Institute of Social Sciences for a research development grant under its Area Studies Program to examine ‘Cultural Influences on Vitamin D status I Southeast Asian Women’ - $49,962 has been provided to support this project.

Professor Ron Grunstein and colleagues at the Woolcock Institute of Medical Research on the award of a NHMRC Centre for Clinical Research Excellence (CCRE) in Interdisciplinary Sleep Health $2.5 million grant. The CCRE is based at a network of hospitals and research institutes at the University of Sydney and is funded by the NHMRC for five years (2009 - 2013) to support clinical research training and research translation in the fields of interdisciplinary sleep medicine. Fields of research will broadly encompass metabolic health and sleep disorders; neurobehavioural and neurobiological interactions with sleep health; increasing effectiveness of treatments for sleep disorders, and new biomarkers of sleep health. See University News item.

Staff of the Woolcock Institute for Medical Research participants in a major ARC Linkage Project about to commence assessing the Effects of Nano and Ultrafine Particles from Traffic Emissions on Children's Health ($774,000 over 5 years) in partnership with Queensland University of Technology in partnership with Queensland Transport. The socio-economic benefits to Australia will include:

• quantitative knowledge of the exposure to nano and ultrafine particles, pollutants in the centre of current scientific, medical and policy debates and
• a breakthrough in the scientific understanding of the specific particle properties, which have impacts on health effects.

The ultimate economic benefit will be improved urban design to lower, in particular, children's exposure to ultrafine particles, thus reducing lifelong impacts, health care cost and productivity losses. The research will also place Australia at the forefront of international progress towards better methods for achieving environmental and public health sustainability.


Warm thanks to South Dubbo Rotary Club for its commitment to provide $100,000 over the next five years to the School of Rural Health; the first $20,000 has just been received. “The money has come from Destination Outback and other ongoing fundraising projects” according to the President of South Dubbo Rotary Mr Tony Speirs. Dubbo South Rotary views tertiary education as a community cornerstone and is keen to heighten awareness of Dubbo’s position as a major regional centre. Tertiary education is most definitely viewed as a priority. The funds received will be put to the future expansion of local campuses of the School of Rural Health.


NHMRC Fellowships ­ mock interviews
Thank you to those who assisted NHMRC Fellowship applicants by acting as interviewers for the mock interviews organised by Carol Armour in mid-June - Paul Haber, Euan Tovey, Tania Sorrell, Graham Mann, Phyllis Butow, Des Richardson, Tailoi Chan-Ling, Roger Reddel and Nick Hunt. In giving up time from their busy research schedules these people are making an invaluable contribution to the success of their colleagues and to the overall success of the Sydney Medical School.


Contacts with governments
The Vice-Chancellor has requested that all faculties inform David Morris in his office if/when they are proposing to have contact with senior government officials and government ministers. The Vice-Chancellor has regular contact with relevant ministers and their senior staff. The University wishes to ensure that there is a degree of co-ordination of contacts with ministers and that the Vice-Chancellor is aware of discussions taking place in other parts of the University when he is in touch with government.

David Morris is the Director of Government Relations in the Vice-Chancellor’s Office and can be contacted on 9351 2273 or


Medical Program admissions
Preliminary statistics relating applicants for next year now available:

• the total number of applications for all graduate-entry medical schools has increased from 2781 last year to 3090 this year;
• Sydney’s total number of first preference applications increased 23% compared to last year;
• For the third year in a row Sydney has the highest proportion of first preference applicants achieving a GAMSAT score of 60 or above: 78% (ahead of Queensland 74% and ANU 59% and the national figure of 48%).

Bruce Robinson
Dean