Good News

Ann Holmes has received ethics approval to complete the final study for her PhD.

New grants/funding

Two grant applications submitted by Vardoulakis et al. to UKRI-NHMRC Built Environment and Prevention Research scheme: 

• Healthy, Equitable and Sustainable Urban Mobility to Prevent Non-Communicable Diseases in the UK and Australia (led by ANU)
• Development of an integrated urbanome and Environmental Burden of Disease model to inform health and housing policy and practice (led by QUT)

Other conference presentations

Jo Lane to present at the Progress in MS Research Scientific Conference 31 October-1 November 2019 in Melbourne titled “Our Health in Our Hands: improving personalised care in multiple sclerosis”.

Outreach and engagement

ACT Multiple Sclerosis Symposium 2019 titled Personalised and integrated management of MS on Tuesday 29^th October hosted by NCEPH and JCSMR.

Media releases/interest

Martyn Kirk has been interviewed by several media outlets in the Newcastle, Toowoomba and Katherine Regions discussing the release of PFAS Health Study survey.

Student news

Medical students presenting posters of their research projects at the ACT Multiple Sclerosis Symposium 2019:

Tiller, C., Rodney Harris, R., & Lucas, R., for the Ausimmune Investigator Group. Vitamin D metabolites and risk of first clinical diagnosis of central nervous system demyelination in the Ausimmune Study.

Sebastian, P., Lane, J., & Lucas, R., for the US Pediatric MS Consortium. Is low sun exposure a risk factor for pediatric multiple sclerosis?

Grant, J., Lane, J., & Lucas, R. Risk of first clinical diagnosis of CNS demyelination in relation to human herpesviruses and other than Epstein Barr virus.

Price, E., Lane, J., & Lucas, R. The experience of healthcare in multiple sclerosis.

Other news

Rose Hosking, supervised by Aparna has submitted her Honours thesis.

Papers accepted/published:

Jones B, Taylor K, Lucas RM, Merritt T, Chicken C, Heller J, Carrick J, Givney R, Durrheim DN.  Challenges in using serological methods to explore historical transmission risk of Chlamydia psittaci in a workforce with high exposure to equine chlamydiosis. Communicable Diseases Intelligence (accepted 11 Oct 2019)

Mueller W., Steinle S., Pärkkä J., Parmes E., Liedes H., Kuijpers E., Pronk A., Sarigiannis D., Karakitsios S., Chapizanis D., Maggos T., Stamatelopoulou A., Wilkinson P., Milner J., Vardoulakis S., Loh M., 2019. Urban greenspace and the indoor environment: Pathways to health via indoor particulate matter, noise, and road noise annoyance. Environmental Research (in press)

Santiago J.L., Sánchez B., Quaassdorff C., de la Paz D., Martilli A., Martín F., Borge R., Rivas E., Gómez-Moreno F.J., Díaz E., Artiñano B., Yagüe C., Vardoulakis S., 2019. Microscale Modelling of Particulate Matter Dispersion in a Real Hot Spot in Madrid (Spain). Atmospheric Pollution Research (in press)

Progress on research projects

PFAS Health Study

The survey was released this month, with approximately 2,300 letters of invitation being sent to participants of the Australian Government Department of Health’s Voluntary Blood Testing Program. This roll out was an invitation to participate in the online survey, and will be followed up in the next 4 weeks with a reminder letter, then a paper copy of the survey.

Our Health in our Hands – ACT MS Cohort