Delivering Impact
Monash University MagazinePosts by Monash University
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A century of memories
By Monash University Jun 11, 2013
History-changing wartime events, from the Battle of Gettysburg to the D-Day landings and the Fall of Saigon, generate memories not only in those on the frontline, but also in the communities from which they came. For Australians, World War I and the Gallipoli campaign in particular are powerful influences on the understanding of our history and our national identity. As the centenary of World War I approaches, Monash University has launched a project designed to capture and preserve memories of those years.Professor Bruce Scates, from Monash University’s National Centre for Australian Studies, is leading the project. It will gather 100 stories – one for each year since the war began in 1914 – from Australian communities large and small.
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Meeting the future’s great expectations
By Monash University Jun 11, 2013
Meeting the future’s great expectations Guest editorial by Dr Megan Clark, Chief Executive, CSIRO Profound challenges confront Australian manufacturing. The high Australian dollar, the strength of the resources boom and the continuing fallout from the global financial crisis have all had an impact, but perhaps most significant is the intense global and regional competition felt as Asia, and China in particular, invests billions of dollars in research and development.In order to compete globally, Australia has no option but to take a collaborative approach. Individually, research institutions and industry are simply not able to meet such huge challenges.
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Meeting the future’s great expectations
By Monash University Jun 11, 2013
Meeting the future’s great expectations Guest editorial by Dr Megan Clark, Chief Executive, CSIRO Profound challenges confront Australian manufacturing. The high Australian dollar, the strength of the resources boom and the continuing fallout from the global financial crisis have all had an impact, but perhaps most significant is the intense global and regional competition felt as Asia, and China in particular, invests billions of dollars in research and development.In order to compete globally, Australia has no option but to take a collaborative approach. Individually, research institutions and industry are simply not able to meet such huge challenges. We cannot do this alone. We need to foster more and deeper partnerships
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Unnatural selection
By Monash University Jun 11, 2013
Genetic science has presented us with one of the most complex ethical dilemmas of our time: what kinds of people should be born. Discussion hinges largely on a technology known as pre-implantation genetic diagnosis (PGD), which enables doctors to screen a couple’s embryos to ensure the child has not inherited the genetic predisposition for a serious hereditary disorder such as cystic fibrosis and Tay–Sachs disease or traits such as deafness. PGD is a routine part of in-vitro fertilisation (IVF) when one or both parents lives with a genetic disorder or carries its telltale gene, explains bioethicist Associate Professor Robert Sparrow.Most people would consider the ability to screen out embryos with such genes an unqualified good.
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Science refines the breath of life
By Monash University Jun 11, 2013
Helping premature babies survive is a fraught process that can cause harm even as it preserves life. But the finetuning of resuscitation techniques is making a difference.In developed countries, babies born after only 24 weeks’ gestation have a chance of surviving. Although medical advances have reduced some of the risk in their difficult start to life, these infants tend to be confronted by recurring complications – from chronic lung disease to neurocognitive problems and vision impairment.At Monash University, researchers led by developmental physiologist Professor Richard Harding are refining clinical practices to improve the longer-term health prospects of premature babies, especially for those born before 30 weeks.In particular, his research group is refining how respiratory technologies for preterm infants are applied – during resuscitation, and later during the mechanical ventilation necessary to help them to continue breathing. Professor Harding says this concentration on postnatal care follows a recognition by researchers and doctors that science, for the moment, cannot do any more to reduce the number of premature births.
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AIDS FIGHTER DRAWS HOPE FROM A CRISIS
By Monash University Feb 15, 2013
Preventing AIDS is more effective than treating it, says a South African whose 28-year dedication to the cause has brought the promise of a turnaround in this devastating pandemic.After treating his first HIV and AIDS patients in 1985, Professor Geoffrey Setswe realised he would have to step out of the safe confines of the Impala Platinum mine hospital in Rustenburg, South Africa, where he was working as a nurse.These were early instances of an indiscriminate disease that would soon reach pandemic proportions in his native South Africa, where 5.6 million people are infected – 11 per cent of the population. “Many people that I grew up with died before they could reach the age of 30, others before they could reach the age of 40,” says Professor Setswe, now a prevention specialist and head of the School of Health Sciences at Monash South Africa.The spread of the disease among his miner patients in the 1980s alerted Professor Setswe to the possibilities of finding a way to interrupt the cycle of transmission.In the case of Impala Platinum, many of the miners were visiting the same local sex workers, and condom use was sporadic at best. With colleagues, the young nurse started an informal program to promote condom use to these sex workers, and – in contravention of the health authority’s policy of distributing condoms only from clinics – began handing them out where miners congregated. Then, as now, his focus was on healthy people
