2021 Events

Adrian is Professor of Biostatistics and Epidemiology and is often seen in the media talking about COVID-19. In this presentation, Adrian will look at the current state of play in NSW and Victoria, the likely impact on South Australia of opening the borders, and how to keep UniSA safe.

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Date: Monday 22 November, 11:30-12:30​
Location: Bradley Building, HB8-18 and Zoom

Clive is co-director of the University’s new “Centre for Pharmaceutical Innovation” and Head of the “Nanostructure and Drug Delivery” research group.  In this talk he will report recent research case studies associated with (i) improving oral delivery of challenging drugs through hybrid nanostructures, (ii) nanocarriers for antimicrobial delivery and improved infection control and (iii) nanomedicines for improved chemotherapy.

'The Light of Truth: Elucidating the Structures and Behaviour of Drug Delivery Platforms with Synchrotron Radiation'

Anton is the Leader of the Applied Chemistry and Translational Biomaterials Group. His research focuses on the development of innovative chemistries, delivery systems and biotechnologies to address challenges in the biomedical, mining, and environmental sectors.

Nanoscale delivery platforms and responsive polymers have promise for the delivery of therapeutics and cells, and their structure strongly influences their behaviour (e.g., cellular uptake). Observing the precise structure of these systems in solution is particularly challenging. In this presentation, Anton will discuss the application of Synchrotron X-ray scattering techniques for the elucidation of micelle morphology and for studying the behaviour of polymer systems in response to stimuli.

Date: Monday 25 October, 11:30-12:30​
Location: Bradley Building, HB8-18 and Zoom

Dr Michaela Johnson completed a PhD in Medical Science at the University of South Australia in 2018, with her research focused on establishing an early (prodromal) model of Parkinson’s disease, using the neurotoxin rotenone. Upon conferral of her PhD, Michaela was appointed to a highly competitive postdoctoral fellow position working with internationally renowned Parkinson’s disease expert Patrik Brundin, and his laboratory team at the Van Andel Institute in Michigan, USA. While working at the Van Andel Institute, Michaela’s research focused on using the α-synuclein preformed fibrils model of Parkinson’s Disease to investigate how different environmental triggers and genetic mutations affect the cell-to-cell transfer of pathology.

Date: Monday 13 September, 11:30-12:30​
Location: Bradley Building, HB8-18 and Zoom

Zoom link
Password: 745694

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Dr Davidson is a senior research fellow in the fetal physiology and neuroscience group at The University of Auckland, New Zealand. The overarching goal of her research is to understand the mechanisms of perinatal brain injury with a focus on the development of new treatment strategies. Her research interests include connexin hemichannel biology, inflammation, optimisation of therapeutic hypothermia, the use of recombinant erythropoietin and human amnion epithelial cells as neuroprotective treatments and the development of treatment strategies for mild hypoxic-ischemic encephalopathy.

'Understanding and alleviating the impacts of maternal asthma'

Kathy is a group leader in the Robinson Research Institute, and a teaching-research academic in the newly formed School of Biomedicine, at the University of Adelaide. She has broad research interests in normal and complicated pregnancy, how these impact the health of progeny, and interventions to improve maternal and progeny health. Asthma affects the pregnancies of ~40000 Australian women each year, and we are using a variety of experimental approaches to not only understand how asthma affects the mother and her infant, but also to answer the question of whether pregnancy also affects asthma progression.

Date: Monday 30 August, 11:30-12:30​
Location: Bradley Building, HB8-18 and Zoom

Dr Nadia Corsini is a Senior Research Fellow at the Rosemary Bryant AO Research Centre.

Nadia is an experienced behavioural scientist who has worked extensively with industry, government and nongovernment organisations on research and evaluation projects focused on promoting health and wellbeing and supporting people recovering from illness. Nadia’s primary research interests centre around improving quality of life for people affected by cancer. She is passionate about consumer engagement and has been actively engaged with the Community and Consumer Action Group at Health Translation SA.

In this presentation you will learn about how to get started with engaging consumers in your research, how to do this well, and what support is available.

Date: Monday 1 August, 1:00-2:00pm​
Location: Zoom only

Dr Claire Jones is a mechanical engineer who studies the biomechanics of the musculoskeletal and nervous systems in normal, diseased and injured states. A better understanding of such biomechanics contributes to improved disease and injury prevention strategies, diagnostic tests and conservative and surgical management. One focus of Claire’s research is the trauma that results from sudden injury to the head or spine, such as concussions, traumatic brain injuries (TBI), skull fractures, spinal column fractures, and spinal cord injuries (SCI).  In this presentation, she will discuss pre-clinical and cadaver models that she develops to study injury mechanisms, outcomes, and interventions.

Claire is a Senior Research Fellow, jointly appointed in the Adelaide Medical School and School of Mechanical Engineering, at The University of Adelaide. She leads the Adelaide Spinal Research Group (ASRG), within the Centre for Orthopaedics & Trauma Research. Her team currently comprises six PhD students, a postdoctoral researcher and a research assistant, with backgrounds in medical sciences and engineering. ASRG research is currently supported by the Australian Research Council (Discovery Project), Perpetual Impact Philanthropy (Kevin Darrell Clarke Endowment), Neurosurgical Research Foundation, The Hospital Research Foundation, and North American Spine Society.

Date: Monday 19 July, 11:30-12:30​
Location: Bradley Building, HB8-18 and Zoom

In the mineral leaching process, there are several factors that have a substantial effect on the reaction kinetics and yield, amongst them the reaction participating ion concentration. Currently, there are a limited number of analytical techniques that allow fast and accurate Fe3+ ion concentration measurements. The aim of this project is to develop a sensitive, selective and fast responding optical fibre based ferric ion sensor using a metal organic framework coating as the spectroscopic probe.

'Development of new injectable biomaterials for the delivery of cells and therapeutic agents'

Juliet is a PhD candidate at UniSA Clinical and Health Sciences. Her research focuses on the development of injectable biomaterials for the delivery of cells and therapeutic agents, which aims to identify new polymeric biomaterials to provide novel systems for tissue engineering and controlled delivery of adoptive cell therapies.

Date: Monday 21 June, 11:30-12:30​
Location: Bradley Building, HB8-18 and Zoom

Lin Ong is a teaching & research academic at the School of Pharmacy, Monash University Malaysia. He is an emerging researcher in translational stroke research. His research directly addresses two of the most challenging problems in stroke and cerebrovascular conditions:

1. how to prevent widespread neuronal cell death after brain injury/ischemia, and
2. how to promote brain recovery to yield the greatest possible functional outcome.

His work to date has provided direct evidence that stroke initiates delayed tissue loss in remote brain regions that are functionally connected to the primary infarction site. He further demonstrated the association between stroke induced secondary neurodegeneration and cognitive impairment. Critically, he has shown the modulation of brain repair mechanisms using pharmacological and non-pharmacological approaches can promote stroke recovery.

Date: Monday 7 June, 11:30-12:30​
Location: Bradley Building, HB8-18 and Zoom

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Maurizio is a teaching focussed academic in Clinical and Health Sciences. He Chairs the Animal Ethics Committee and is currently Dean of Research at Education Futures. His educational research focusses on innovative approaches to enhance student learning. He has successfully applied interactive simulations to enhance student learning in lectures and practicals.

Maurizio is also a senior member of the Molecular Signalling laboratory, which studies the enzyme, sphingosine kinase.

In this seminar, Maurizio will provide an overview of how the AEC reviews an application and, he will highlight common areas of an application which can delay and/or lead to a rejection.

'Research Integrity'

Sally is a research academic at UniSA Clinical and Health Sciences. In addition to her research and teaching roles, she is the Academic Integrity Advisor for City East and the Bradley Building. The Australian community expects research to be conducted responsibly, ethically and with integrity and as researchers it is important we know what this looks like and we promote the responsible conduct of research.

This talk will focus on areas of research integrity and some common ‘mistakes’ that can easily occur.

Date: Monday 24 May, 11:30-12:30​
Location: Bradley Building, HB8-18 and Zoom

Alan is Dean of Research and Institute Director, Clinical and Health Sciences. He will be talking about the new Project-based Higher Degree by Research process and the Research and Enterprise Measures of Success.

Date: Monday 10 May, 11:30-12:30​
Location: Bradley Building, HB8-18 and Zoom

Dr Emily Meyer is an Endocrinologist at the Royal Adelaide and Queen Elizabeth Hospitals. She is completing a PhD in corticosteroid-binding globulin (CBG) in septic shock and was successful in being awarded the AR Clarkson Scholarship, Royal Adelaide Hospital Research Fund.

CBG is the key transport protein for cortisol and other steroid hormones.It is a non-inhibitory serine protease inhibitor, capable of conformational change from a high cortisol-binding affinity form to a low affinity form upon cleavage of its reactive centre loop by various proteases, such as neutrophil elastase.CBG is naturally designed to optimise the human body’s natural response to inflammation by facilitating maximal cortisol delivery via four key mechanisms: pyrexia, reduced synthesis, neutrophil elastase cleavage and tissue acidosis. Our human studies demonstrate that a lack of targeted delivery of natural cortisol and/or administered hydrocortisone to damaged tissue is due to deficient serum concentrations of CBG, perpetuating organ failure and death in sepsis.
Pregnancy and the estrogen-based combined oral contraceptive pill increase CBG concentrations threefold through increased hepatic synthesis, placental derived CBG and pregnancy induced changes in glycosylation patterns.Speculatively, increased circulating CBG concentrations in pregnancy may provide an increased reservoir of CBG-bound cortisol to prepare for the risk of puerperal infection or allow for cortisol binding in the face of competition from increased circulating progesterone concentrations.

Date: Monday 29 March, 11:30-12:30​
Location: Bradley Building, HB8-18 and Zoom

Amy has just begun her ECR fellowship funded by The Hospital Research Foundation where she is developing novel antiseptic formulations for the treatment of vaginal and perineal tears caused by childbirth. She uses state-of-the-art imaging techniques to study the effects of nanomaterials on biological tissue. She will be discussing how her research on the skin is informing the development of novel formulations for the vaginal mucosa.

Date: Monday 15 March, 11:30-12:30​
Location: Bradley Building, HB8-18 and Zoom

Santosh completed his PhD in 2019 from the University of Queensland. He started working as an early career researcher with A/Prof Cobus Gerber at University of South Australia Clinical & Health Sciences.

Date: Monday 1 March, 11:30-12:30​
Location: Bradley Building, HB8-18 and Zoom

Dr Andrea Stringer is Theme Leader for Gut Health and Deputy Director of Health and Biomedical Innovation in UniSA Clinical and Health Sciences.

She leads research on gut function and gut microbiome, developing strategies for preventing or treating oral and gastrointestinal damage following cancer treatments (mucositis) to reduce the burden of cancer.  Her work involves identifying the mechanisms underpinning the damage that occurs following cancer treatments, with studies investigating the microbiome, inflammatory cytokines, the mucus barrier, and the enteric nervous system.

She has been involved in multiple pre-clinical investigations evaluating mucositis treatments and their effectiveness in treating cancer treatment-induced mucositis.  Her current work focusses on the role of vitamin D in the intestine, specifically maintaining the microbiome, an anti-inflammatory environment and barrier function.

Date: Monday 15 February, 11:30-12:30​
Location: Bradley Building, HB8-18 and Zoom