Melbourne Brain Centre at RMH

23/09/2024

📢 Calling all Executive Assistants! 📢

We need an EA to provide top-tier executive support to the Co-Chairs of the Australian Stroke Alliance, driving operational efficiency for ground breaking stroke research.

Play a key role in supporting innovative national research and cutting-edge brain scanning technology development, aimed at revolutionising early stroke intervention.

💼 Position: Executive Assistant
📍 Location: Parkville
💰 Salary: UOM 6 – $96,459 – $104,413 p.a. plus 17% super

Ready to make a difference in medical innovation? Apply now!
https://lnkd.in/g6vCM-fx

This link will take you to a page that’s not on LinkedIn

05/03/2024

The CORe Unit have exciting news to share about a development led by Dr Sifat Sharmin.

We have recently developed an R package - called MSoutcomes - which gives researchers of outcomes in MS access to a suite of free tools that enables them to apply standardised definitions of confirmed disability worsening, confirmed disability improvement, PIRA and SPMS in the analysis of their data.

This is a significant step forward, as until now, researchers, including RCT leads, used their own versions of these definitions and analytical scripts, which have made comparisons among studies very difficult. MSoutcomes now allows researchers to use the same language in defining outcomes in MS.

We have made the package publicly available, in the spirit of open science, and would like to let people know broadly, that they are welcome to use it.

access link: https://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/MSoutcomes/index.html

11/09/2023

Harnessing the Power of Sleep for Healthy Brain Ageing

Monash University will host an in person Sleep Health Seminar.

27th September - 6:00pm - Clayton Campus

To Register:
https://www.eventbrite.com.au/e/cogsleep-presents-harnessing-the-power-of-sleep-for-healthy-brain-ageing-tickets-667261656577

About half of older adults have chronic sleep complaints. Getting enough sleep is vital to your physical, emotional, and cognitive health but how do we ensure a good nights’ sleep?

The Centre of Research Excellence to Optimise Sleep in Brain Ageing and Neurodegeneration (CogSleep) and the Sleep Health Foundation invites you to join us to discuss the importance of sleep for healthy brain ageing. CogSleep is a government funded, 5-year program that brings together a world class cross-disciplinary team of researchers in the fields of ageing, dementia, chronobiology, sleep, and neuroimaging.

In recognition of the conclusion of the CogSleep CRE, the event will be a panel discussion on recent discoveries and major advances in knowledge in the field of sleep and ageing. Our CogSleep Chief Investigators and other experts will also discuss how we are working to translate these findings into clinical practice and practical strategies to ensure a good nights’ sleep.

Our expert panel includes Prof Charles Czeisler, Prof Shantha Rajaratnam and Prof Amy Brodtmann, who will discuss how we are working to translate recent findings into clinical practice and practical strategies to ensure a good nights’ sleep.

Join us for an expert panel discussion in sleep and ageing

08/09/2023

New Treatments for Alzheimer’s Disease are almost upon us - How do they change general practice?

The new antibody treatments for Alzheimer’s have been described as game changers, but are they really?

Join us for an exclusive webinar and live Q&A session to discuss the latest advancements in Alzheimer's treatment, featuring insights from some of the leading experts in the field.

📅 Date: Tuesday 26 September 2023
🕒 Time: 7:30 - 8:30 PM AEST | 5:30 - 6:30 PM AWST

Register to join: https://lnkd.in/gwD2y9CD

During this session, the panel will explore what else is on the horizon in the fight against Alzheimer's and the evolving landscape of intervention, with a focus on early dementia. This session will include a live Q&A for participants to ask the panel their questions and will allow all participants to receive 1 Educational Activity CPD hour.

04/09/2023

A huge congratulations to Dr Thanuja Dharmadasa

The RMH neurologist and The Florey Institute researcher Dr Thanuja Dharmadasa has received funding for three grants in a record investment from FightMND.

28/08/2023

09/02/2023

PhD project (3 Years) Developing models of causal effects of therapies in MS -

This project will expand the capabilities of MSM for study of MS therapy by addressing the following aims:
• To develop a method enabling analysis of left-censored longitudinal cohorts with variable time of patient entry
• To enable evaluation of long-term treatment effects in counterfactual framework
• To develop a method that will allow evaluation of delayed treatment effects
• To generalise MSM to enable comparison of multiple MS therapies and pairwise comparison of MS therapies.

This project uses innovative contemporary statistical methods and simulation methods for longitudinal observational data with complex confounding.
Click the link below for more info

A 3-year PhD research project to improve the methodology of marginal structural models to analyse clinical datasets in Multiple Sclerosis

09/02/2023

PhD project (3 Years) Biomarkers of personalised therapy for multiple sclerosis -

This PhD project will further develop the prototype predictive algorithm (Crystal Ball 2.0) to improve the accuracy of our ability to predict individual response to MS therapies. It is built upon a composite cohort recruited across 7 collaborating sites in Australia, Sweden, Switzerland and the Czech Republic. The improved algorithm will incorporate promising biomarkers, such as neurofilament light chain, serum vitamin D concentration and volumetric MRI.
click the link for further information

A 3yr PhD research project to develop an algorithm to predict individual response to Multiple Sclerosis therapies.

29/08/2022

Congratulations to RMH neurologist Dr Vivien Li, who has received an incubator grant in the latest round of MS Australia funding.

MS Australia chooses grant recipients that have 'out-of-the-box' Australian research projects that explore innovative ways to prevent and treat multiple sclerosis (MS). The latest round of funding for the MS research projects will see $180,000 distributed across four research projects, including Vivien's.

Vivien's project will look into how pausing treatment affects MS disease activity using new MRI technologies.

Many MS patients will need to pause their treatments for a variety of reasons, including pregnancy, side effects or other illness. This adds uncertainty around disease progression among MS patients and their loved ones.

Vivien will use one of two 7-Tesla MRI scanners in Australia, which have over twice the magnetic strength of standard hospital scanners, to assist in making more informed treatment decisions.
“This research will study how brain inflammation is affected by stopping or pausing treatment using new MRI technologies, which provide better images, comparing them to routine hospital scans, to see if smaller and subtler changes of MS activity can be identified,” Vivien said.
From these detailed images, doctors and patients can make more informed, precise decisions about treatment options that suit their current needs.

Originally sourced from RMH Connect