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Science In Public

Science writers, communicators, media, training, and public relations

Operations

Making cancer treatment less aggressive and more effective

Tracy Heng wants to make cancer treatment gentler and more effective for elderly patients with blood cancer and other blood disorders.

“Bone marrow transplants have transformed survival rates for blood cancers. They replace a diseased blood system with healthy blood-forming cells, but first, doctors have to wipe out a patient’s immune system, which takes a big toll on elderly patients. My goal is to change that,” says Tracy. [Read more…] about Making cancer treatment less aggressive and more effective

Stem cells healing broken hearts

James Chong has two starters in the race to develop stem cell therapies for heart failure as viable alternatives to heart transplants. His research is exploring both the potential for transplanted stem cells to regenerate new heart tissue and how to repair a patient’s heart by rejuvenating their own heart stem cells.

“In Australia, 54,000 people suffer a heart attack and 20,000 die from chronic heart failure each year. I want to develop stem cell treatments that can save the lives of the thousands of people who miss out on heart transplants,” says James. [Read more…] about Stem cells healing broken hearts

Tens of thousands of Australian lives changed, over three million to go

National science prize for Melbourne hearing aid revolutionary Elaine Saunders

Four million Australians, young and old, need a hearing blamey_saunders_logoaid. Without one they’re at risk of losing their friends, their partner, their job and their sanity. But price, stigma and the loss of control when we see an audiologist are amongst the factors that stop most people from acting.

Elaine Saunders has changed that for tens of thousands of Australians.  [Read more…] about Tens of thousands of Australian lives changed, over three million to go

(ATSE media release) Innovation and a thick skin wins out for top science award

Embargo 6pm Wednesday 15 June

Hearing aids are not all the same, despite claims to the contrary, and price is no longer a good indicator of quality.

This is a message from Dr Elaine Saunders, who is today set to receive Australia’s top honour for our leading visionaries, a prestigious ATSE Clunies Ross Award in the Entrepreneur of the Year Category. The award recognises her successful disruption of hearing service provision in Australia. Dr Saunders has made premium hearing aids more accessible by challenging business and pricing models.

[Read more…] about (ATSE media release) Innovation and a thick skin wins out for top science award

Showcasing innovative defence technologies

The Defence Science and Technology Group (DST) is staging open days at its Melbourne laboratory for industry and academia to showcase innovative technologies being developed to give the Australian Defence Force a capability edge.

The Partnerships Week event (6 to 10 June) is part of DST’s outreach campaign for closer ties with companies, universities and public research organisations to undertake collaborative research projects for Defence capability.

Chief Defence Scientist, Dr Alex Zelinsky, said Partnerships Week was based on the successful event held in Adelaide last year.

“Our industry and university partners have said they value the interaction with our scientists and the opportunity to get involved with the specialist work we do for Australia’s defence and national security,” he said.

The event includes site tours, technology demonstrations, research capability displays, and access to Defence researchers to discuss new and emerging capabilities. [Read more…] about Showcasing innovative defence technologies

Inside the ‘secret’ Defence Science and Technology Group laboratories

You’re invited to take a look inside the ‘secret’ Defence Science and Technology Group laboratories in Fishermans Bend tomorrow and Thursday.

Access will be tightly controlled so it will take a bit of planning. This isn’t your regular media call where you can just turn up. This is Defence…. there will be forms, you’ll need ID, serial numbers of your kit and other complications.

But we have stories for your consideration: some for now, some for later. [Read more…] about Inside the ‘secret’ Defence Science and Technology Group laboratories

Australia is number 12 in high quality global research in Nature Index

Press release from Springer Nature

Group of Eight jostle for high-quality scientific research leadership in Australia

Australia is placed 12th globally for its contribution to high-quality scientific research papers, according to the Nature Index Tables released together today.

Australia is just ahead of India and three places behind South Korea. The US leads the index, followed by China, Germany, the UK and Japan.

[Read more…] about Australia is number 12 in high quality global research in Nature Index

Movers and shakers in the world of high-quality scientific research

Press release from Springer Nature

The US is the world’s largest contributor to high-quality scientific research papers, followed by China and Germany, according to the Nature Index 2016 Tables. Of the top ten countries in the Nature Index, only China has shown double-digit compound annual growth between 2012 and 2015 with some of its universities growing their contribution to the index as fast as 25% annually. US contributions have declined 2.8% in the same period from a very high base.

The Nature Index Tables, which show Nature Index calendar year outputs for the last four years, are released together today for the first time. The Nature Index is built on a country or institution’s contribution to about 60,000 high-quality papers each year, and counts both the total number of papers and the relative contribution to each paper. (See notes for editors for full definitions of measures.)

Harvard University, US, has the highest 2015 contribution of any university in the world. Stanford University (second), Massachusetts Institute of Technology (fourth), University of California, Berkeley (seventh), University of California, San Diego (ninth) and University of Michigan (tenth) — all from the US — occupy top ten positions. The University of Tokyo, Japan, is placed third, the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge, UK, are fifth and sixth, respectively, and ETH Zurich, Switzerland, is placed eighth.

[Read more…] about Movers and shakers in the world of high-quality scientific research