the graduate union newsletter
SEPTEMBER 2020
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Graduate House A poem “on the beauty of patience, for those who are tired of waiting for things to improve, but who are still doing whatever they can to improve the place where they are:1”
St Kevin and the Blackbird by Seamus Heaney And then there was St Kevin and the blackbird. The saint is kneeling, arms stretched out, inside His cell, but the cell is narrow, so One turned-up palm is out the window, stiff As a crossbeam, when a blackbird lands And lays in it and settles down to nest. Kevin feels the warm eggs, the small breast, the tucked Neat head and claws and, finding himself linked Into the network of eternal life, Is moved to pity: now he must hold his hand Like a branch out in the sun and rain for weeks Until the young are hatched and fledged and flown. * And since the whole thing’s imagined anyhow, Imagine being Kevin. Which is he? Self-forgetful or in agony all the time From the neck on out down through his hurting forearms? Are his fingers sleeping? Does he still feel his knees? Or has the shut-eyed blank of underearth Crept up through him? Is there distance in his head? Alone and mirrored clear in love’s deep river, ‘To labour and not to seek reward,’ he prays, A prayer his body makes entirely For he has forgotten self, forgotten bird And on the riverbank forgotten the river’s name. Watch Seamus Heaney read the poem: https://bit.ly/3iBPKe5 1 Sarah Skwire https://www.econlib.org/poems-for-pandemics/
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Contents Coming dates 4
REview 18
International Days – September
Features 6
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Other
Caitlin Murphy – Barbara Hale Fellowship recipient (2019) by Caitlin Murphy Tara-Lyn Camilleri-Carter – Barbara Hale Fellowship recipient (2020) by Tara-Lyn Camilleri-Carter
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First Nations Midnight Oil returns to Gadigal land
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SDG Goals COVID-19 Stalls Progress on Global Goals
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Innovation Living microbes, possibly 100 million years old, pulled from beneath the sea by Elizabeth Pennisi
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Donation Form Your generosity at this time in our Association’s history is very much appreciated
Legal Luminaries Honor 19th Amendment Centennial with Cookbook by the American Bar Association
GU COLLEGIATE 14
August Monthly Luncheon MS Ambassador Dr Kate Cherry
September Monthly Luncheon Phillipa Challis OAM
Graduate house PROMOTIONS 15
Open and Safe at Graduate House
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GU Face Mask
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Graduate House Accommodation
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COMING DATES
international days – September 5th September – International Day of Charity
7th September – National Threatened Species Day
Officially declared by the United Nations (UN) General Assembly in 2012, the International Day of Charity is celebrated annually on 5th September. This date was selected as it commemorates the anniversary of the passing of Mother Teresa who worked tirelessly to overcome the poverty, distress and suffering of the poorest in the world.
National Threatened Species Day is commemorated to raise awareness of plants and animals at risk of extinction. It is commemorated annually on 7th September, the anniversary of the death in captivity of the last known thylacine, or Tasmanian Tiger. Australia is home to more than 500,000 animal and plant species, many of which are found nowhere else in the world. Over the last 200 years, more than 100 animal and plant species have become extinct.
8th September – International Literacy Day International Literacy Day is an opportunity for governments, civil society and stakeholders to highlight improvements in world literacy rates, and reflect on the world’s remaining literacy challenges. The issue of literacy is a key component of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals and the UN’s 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. One of the targets of Sustainable Development Goal 4 is ensuring that all young people achieve literacy and numeracy and that adults who lack these skills are given the opportunity to acquire them.
10th September – World Suicide Prevention Day World Suicide Prevention Day (WSPD) is an awareness day observed on 10th September every year, in order to provide worldwide commitment and action to prevent suicides, with various activities around the world since 2003. The International Association for Suicide Prevention (IASP) collaborates with the World Health Organization (WHO) and the World Federation for Mental Health (WFMH) to host World Suicide Prevention Day.
15th September – International Day of Democracy
16th September – International Day of the Preservation of the Ozone Layer
This year’s International Day of Democracy is an opportunity to recall that democracy is about people. Democracy is built on inclusion, equal treatment and participation – and it is a fundamental building block for peace, sustainable development and human rights. The International Day of Democracy is an opportunity to urge all governments to respect their citizens’ right to active, substantive and meaningful participation in democracy.
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The ozone layer, a fragile shield of gas, protects the Earth from the harmful portion of the rays of the sun, thus helping preserve life on the planet. The theme for this year celebrates over three decades of remarkable international cooperation to protect the ozone layer and the climate under the Montreal Protocol. It reminds us that we must keep up the momentum to ensure healthy people and a healthy planet.
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COMING DATES
21st September – International Day of Peace
23rd September – International Day of Sign Languages
The International Day of Peace is observed as a day devoted to strengthening the ideals of peace, through observing 24 hours of non-violence and cease-fire. This year, our common enemy is the tireless COVID-19 virus that threatens our health, security and our very way of life. In March, the UN called on all warring parties to lay down their weapons and focus on this unprecedented global pandemic. While the message was intended for armed parties, solidarity and cooperation across the world are needed to win this new fight against the worst public health crisis of our time.
The International Day of Sign Languages raises the awareness of the importance of sign language in the full realisation of the human rights of people who are deaf. The first International Day of Sign Languages was celebrated in 2018 under the theme “With Sign Language, Everyone is Included!” According to the World Federation of the Deaf, there are approximately 72 million deaf people worldwide. More than 80 per cent of them live in developing countries. Collectively, they use more than 300 different sign languages.
September – Ian Potter
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FEATURE
Caitlin Murphy – Barbara Hale Fellowship recipient (2019) by Caitlin Murphy
brain diseases such as Parkinson’s disease and schizophrenia. Some of these techniques included G-protein dependent functional assays, fluorescent in situ hybridisation (ISH) assays and primary brain cell extraction from murine embryos. In addition to laboratory work, I was given the opportunity to present my PhD work to members of both groups who provided valuable input on progression of my PhD program and advice on post-PhD career options to advance my dedication to understanding immune-related mechanisms in mental health.
Caitlin Murphy.
I received the Barbara Hale Fellowship (2019) to support my PhD studies investigating the role of inflammation in schizophrenia. With the funds awarded, I was able to travel from Sydney to visit Monash University in Melbourne for one month in early 2020, where I trained with two separate laboratory groups in the worldrenowned Monash Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences (MIPS). The first group that hosted me was led by Associate Professor Erica Sloan, who is an international leader in the neural regulation of immunity. I learned several techniques relevant for my PhD program including 1) harvesting, growing and culturing bone-marrow derived macrophages (BMDM) and cancer cells, 2) using bioluminescence techniques to assess cellular dissemination in living mice, and 3) assessing behavioural outcomes in mouse models of inflammation-associated cognitive impairment.
My PhD aims to untangle the role of inflammation in the brain and the periphery of people with schizophrenia. To this end, I have been studying postmortem brain tissue from patients and non-schizophrenic controls, and comparing the expression of immune-related molecules. My work has uncovered new insights into the neuropathology of schizophrenia, and suggested a causal role of deficiency in one immune regulator called HIVEP2 in the brain of patients. Thus, I wanted to study the effects of HIVEP2-deletion on inflammation in the brain. In collaboration with Japanese pharmaceutical group Astellas, I started working on HIVEP2-knockout mice. I found some interesting overlap in the expression of immune genes in the brains of HIVEP2-knockout mice and patients, supporting my hypothesis that this gene may be important in schizophrenia. Recent work from my lab group in Sydney had also found evidence to suggest that, in schizophrenia, immune cells from the blood squeeze through the blood-brain barrier and enter the brain, causing downstream impairments in brain function. I therefore wanted to assess peripheral immune cells in HIVEP2-knockout mice, but did not have the available resources in Sydney to do so.
The second group I studied under was the laboratory of Molecular and Translational Drug Discovery, led by Dr Christopher Langmead who is Head of the Servier Program in Drug Discovery, a collaborative research program between Monash University and international pharmaceutical company Servier. I trained with Dr Gregory Stewart and other members of the Servier team in Drug Discovery to learn multiple cellular and molecular techniques involved in the development of novel therapeutics for www.graduatehouse.com.au
Receiving the Australian Federation of Graduate Women (AFGW, now known as Australian Graduate Women (AGW)) Barbara Hale 6
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Fellowship allowed me to cover the costs of travel, accommodation and lab equipment/ resources at Monash University in Melbourne so that I could learn the necessary techniques to model and image how peripheral immune cells in HIVEP2-knockout mice enter the brain. The advice and immune-related knowledge I gained at Monash contributed to the submission and acceptance of two first-author publications (Murphy et al. 2020, Brain, Behavior, and Immunity, in press; Murphy et al. 2020, Journal of Neuroinflammation, in press).
at Monash also provided me with unique insights and ideas regarding the potential role of inflammation in schizophrenia. It was invaluable to receive feedback from researchers who study similar pathways in different disease contexts. While in Melbourne, I also took the opportunity to travel to the main Clayton campus to meet with Professor Philip Bird – an expert on one of the proteins that features heavily in my PhD work. This meeting was very productive and I learned much more about the function of this protein in health and disease. This knowledge also informed the writing of my first first-authored journal article from my PhD, which was accepted for publication in Brain, Behavior, and Immunity (doi: 10.1016/j.bbi.2020.05.055) in May. I also recently presented this work at the NSW Schizophrenia Research Summit (virtual conference) which was attended by schizophrenia researchers in Sydney, Wollongong and Newcastle.
Unfortunately, soon after returning to Sydney the outbreak of COVID-19 occurred. As such, implementing the techniques learned at Monash into my PhD thesis has been limited, especially by not being able to access the laboratory and delays in delivery of the transgenic mice. To utilise the training and knowledge I received at Monash University during homebound work across the COVID lockdown period, I played a key role in the development, writing and submission of a $1.5M National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) Ideas grant with my PhD supervisor, Dr Adam Walker, that focused on assessment of immune cell trafficking to the brain in HIVEP2knockout mice based on techniques learned at Monash University.
This month, I had my second first-authored article accepted for publication in the Journal of Neuroinflammation, and I am in the final stages of preparing my third article for submission. I am currently on track to submit my PhD thesis by August/September 2020, and am very excited about my future in neuroimmunology research. I hope to continue studying the interactions between the brain and the immune system, particularly in the context of drug design to target dysregulated inflammation across various diseases.
My time spent at Monash University was immensely beneficial for my development as an independent scientist. I was able to network with leading scientists outside of my research ‘niche’, such as pharmaceutical scientists, which allowed me to understand how to translate my findings into novel drug discovery studies, as well as expand my knowledge on other inflammatory diseases of the brain and body that influence symptoms relevant for schizophrenia. Importantly, I was able to gain experience in drug development in collaboration with a large pharmaceutical company. This is something I am very interested in pursuing post-PhD, and was particularly exciting for me. Sharing my work with scientists
I am extremely grateful to AFGW (now AGW) for awarding me the Barbara Hale Fellowship (2019) and for supporting my research. I feel that this award has given me the confidence to branch out and collaborate with scientists beyond my research ‘niche’ and equipped me with the necessary technical skills to do so. The Barbara Hale Fellowship has directly contributed to my growth as a scientist, and I feel very privileged to have received this award. 7
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FEATURE
Tara-Lyn Camilleri-Carter – Barbara Hale Fellowship recipient (2020) by Tara-Lyn Camilleri-Carter
How did you come to apply for the prestigious Barbara Hale Fellowship? In 2019, I applied, seeking funds from Graduate Women Victoria, because I suffer chronic illness and it can make PhD life difficult. I was lucky enough to win a special scholarship through GWV, and shortly after, I became a member and then a committee member. It was through GWV that I found out about Australian Graduate Women and the Barbara Hale Fellowship. This opportunity aligned so nicely with ideas I had to extend my research, so I decided to try my luck and apply! What do you think made your application a strong one? It is hard to say, because I am sure there were many deserving candidates out there, so I’m careful not to attribute any success I have solely to my hard work. There is always going to be an element of luck! I think though, it helps that over the past two years I’ve been able to learn enough about both the direction I want to take my research in, and how to apply for fellowships/ scholarships/grants. I think a lot of it is practice in clearly articulating my research vision. This is in no small part because of my supervisory team, support from those at Graduate Women Victoria, and fellow lab members who provide me with feedback, and share their wisdom and knowledge with me.
Tara-Lyn Camilleri-Carter.
Opportunities for funding research are hard to come by, and no one knows this better than recent Barbara Hale Fellowship winner, Tara-Lyn Camilleri-Carter. As Tara-Lyn explains below, Australian Graduate Women (AGW) and Graduate Women Victoria (GWV) play a vital role in furthering the work of women and research alike. *** Name/Qualifications/work background My name is Tara-Lyn Camilleri-Carter. I have a degree in psychology, further undergraduate studies in biology and ecology, and a Masters of Biological Anthropology (Advanced). I am currently completing a PhD in evolutionary ecology at Monash University. All of my previous study took place very indirectly, and while I was working other jobs. Primarily, I worked in IT service, and it was a management position in the state government that I left to pursue academia proper. I have also worked at the zoo, done fieldwork and volunteering in South East Asia, and held various other positions.
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Have you applied for many scholarships previously? There really aren’t that many on offer, which is why organisations such as Graduate Women Victoria and Australian Graduate Women are so amazing but I usually do try to fit in the time to have a go at whatever is on offer. What advice would you give to other women applying for scholarships? The first thing, and this applies to everyone: know what you are applying for, read the eligibility and guidelines thoroughly, and ask more senior 8
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PhDs and postdoctorals in the lab for advice and examples of successful applications if they are happy to provide them. Always ask your supervisors for their feedback and advice too!
without specific funding. Each time a research area is funded, it is a tremendous service to knowledge and science itself. Secondly, I am hoping that I can live up to the standard of past AGW fellowship winners and complete some very valuable research. Hopefully, that will also make me more competitive for larger, longer term fellowships post-PhD.
Next, apply for as many things as you can – as many things that apply to you. Now, for those people who are women, or part of another such disadvantaged group, this means looking around at what organisations there are to support and help you. Being involved with these organisations is so rewarding in itself. My final advice for women and people who don’t feel confident is, just have a go! That is all anyone else is doing, no one is inherently more worthy than you are.
Where do you see yourself in five years? I would like to have returned in some way to leadership. I left the IT service industry because it wasn’t for me, but I found leadership very rewarding. Generally, though, my goals for the next five years are the same as my goals for right now, which is to gain an evolutionary science/ academia related position that will allow me to be independent and happy in making the most impact I can, and focusing on balancing career goals with personal and family goals.
What will your fellowship money go towards? My PhD research involves manipulating the diets of female and male fruit flies and monitoring the consequences for their lifespan, fertility, body fat and protein levels. My work shows the existence of a parent-offspring evolutionary conflict over optimal diet, whereby the same dietary combination that is beneficial to the longevity of the parents can have opposing effects in the offspring, despite the parentally-inherited genetic characteristics present in those offspring.
A final word… I would like to say another very heartfelt thanks to GWV and AGW, and to the late Barbara Hale for her contributions to the academic community and to women. The women I have met and learnt about through these graduate women’s organisations are some of the most wonderful, quietly achieving and generous people you could ever have the pleasure of knowing!
The Barbara Hale Fellowship from AGW will largely fund molecular work that will allow me to expand my research into looking at underlying gene expression across generations. This means I will be able to begin to unravel the ‘how’ of what is causing some of these generational effects, as well as the ‘why’ of how evolution drives these effects. This makes my research of relevance to multiple disciplines, from evolutionary ecology to biomedicine. What plans for the future will the fellowship enable? How do you think the fellowship has assisted your long-term fellowship prospects? I think primarily the fellowship enables me to expand my PhD and explore new avenues of research that would simply be closed to me
Tara-Lyn Camilleri-Carter in the laboratory. 9
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FEATURE
In historical nod, legal luminaries honor 19th Amendment centennial with cookbook by the American Bar Association
Patricia Lee Refo said. “Publishing recipe books was one of their ways to spread the word, raise funds and educate the public about women’s right to vote. This cookbook and the centennial remind us that the struggle to ensure voting rights for all Americans continues and that our voting rights should never be taken for granted.”
Chicago, 20th August 2020 — US Supreme Court justices and other legal luminaries have contributed recipes to a new cookbook from the American Bar Association marking this month’s centennial of the 19th Amendment granting women the right to vote. The cookbook is modeled after similar cookbooks published a century ago by suffragists to gain support for the movement.
The cookbook is part of the ABA’s year-long celebration of the 100th anniversary of the 19th Amendment. In February, McKeown and Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg discussed the amendment’s implications at Georgetown University Law Center in Washington, DC, and last October, the Harvard Kennedy School hosted a panel discussion on women’s political power from the 19th Amendment to 2020.
The digital Nineteenth Amendment Centennial Cookbook: 100 Recipes for 100 Years features recipes for dishes from five Supreme Court justices, including a handwritten recipe for Spinach Squares from Sandra Day O’Connor, plus: • Mama’s Corn Pudding from Equal Justice Initiative founder Bryan Stevenson;
Other initiatives include a traveling exhibit called 100 Years After the 19th Amendment: Their Legacy, and Our Future curated by the Library of Congress; digital tool kits to help support public and student programming; free streaming videos that can be used for commemoration events and programs; links to other organizations planning commemoration activities; state anniversary dates; interesting facts about the 19th Amendment and the battle for full suffrage; and a gallery of 19th Amendment images and photos.
• Pizza with Pesto and Sweet Corn from international human rights lawyer Amal Clooney; and • David’s Apple Squash Soup from National Public Radio legal affairs correspondent Nina Totenberg, among others. The cookbook is available for free and can be downloaded at www.19thAmendmentCookbook. com. “Suffragists used recipes to advance their cause, believing that ‘good cooking and sure voting went hand in hand’,” said Judge M. Margaret McKeown of the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and chair of the ABA Commission on the 19th Amendment. When the 1918 pandemic threatened to derail their cause, they overcame obstacles and went on to successful ratification in 1920. “In much the same way, COVID-19 has changed the way we connect with family, friends and communities. Many in the legal arena have found themselves at home, sharing food with their loved ones. They have been generous in sharing their recipes with us,” McKeown said.
*** The ABA is the largest voluntary association of lawyers in the world. As the national voice of the legal profession, the ABA works to improve the administration of justice, promotes programs that assist lawyers and judges in their work, accredits law schools, provides continuing legal education, and works to build public understanding around the world of the importance of the rule of law. View our privacy statement online. Follow the latest ABA news at www.americanbar.org/news and on Twitter @ABANews. Our Chairperson of Council, The Hon Gaetano (Tony) Pagone, contributed a recipe (shown on the following page), in his capacity as President of the International Association of Judges.
“This cookbook, for which I was happy to contribute a recipe, harkens back to the suffragists of 100 years ago and beyond,” ABA President www.graduatehouse.com.au
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GU COLLEGIATE
Monthly luncheon Online Only Event
wednesday, 2nd September 2020 12:20 log-on for 12:30pm start Phillipa Challis OAM Most people know me as The Laughter Lady, a professional speaker, Master of ceremony (MC) and leading practitioner in the ‘Laughter Industry’. I am also the Founder of Live Life Laughing, Laughter Clubs Victoria Inc. and Leader of Laughter Club Geelong. I’ve also spent over 25 years helping clients get noticed, with stand-out promotions, public relations and special events. As a businesswoman, my work has incorporated being a professional keynote speaker for over 25 years, predominantly in the corporate and commercial sectors. I have spoken to audiences in America, Europe and Australia. My work focuses on workplace wellbeing and team building and injecting energy and enthusiasm into organisations. As CEO of Live Life Laughing I bring a new approach to corporate health and wellness to increase the physical and psychological health of employees at their workplace. Satisfied clients report that my workshops saw a lowering of stress levels, boosted energy, and increased productivity for individuals. Anecdotal evidence over many years has shown Laughter Yoga combats body breakdown in the workplace, and results in entire organisations saving thousands of dollars. I am an expert at delivering presentations which can take place in your conference room or outdoors. The best benefit is the outcome is noticeable straight away, plus employees can continue to do the activity at their leisure. I look forward to helping you harness Hearty Laughter, Happy People and Healthy Profits in your business, your community and your life.
Due to COVID-19 lockdown restrictions, the Monthly Luncheon will be an online only event. A connection fee of $5 per person is applicable. To book, please ring or email us, and a link to the Monthly Luncheon will be provided. We recommend that you connect 10 minutes before the event to ensure you are able to view the presentation and that, for question time, your speakers and microphone work properly.
Telephone (03) 9347 3428
Venue Graduate House 220 Leicester Street, Carlton, VIC, 3053
Email admingh@graduatehouse.com.au
Cost $ 5 Virtual (Online)
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GU PROMOTION
Open and Safe at Graduate House
Graduate House is the ideal place to live – we are clean, safe and take care of you.
Our food is prepared and served with your safety in mind (Class 2 registration, Melbourne City Council).
We have increased deep cleaning and sanitisation of all surfaces.
We adhere strictly to the 2 metres physical distancing rules.
We have online ordering and cashless transactions for all purchases.
Contactless hand sanitisers are positioned conveniently throughout Graduate House.
GU Face Mask - New Colours in stock! Reusable and Durable
E SAL00
Available for purchase at Graduate House Reception and online at www.graduatehouse.com.au/product/face-masks
$
Made with three layers of breathable fabric.
15. h* eac
Outerside layer — stout durable 100% drill cotton fabric with a strong diagonal bias in the weave. Internal layer — unwoven fabric, 100% breathable filter. Innerside layer — the inside fabric is a strong and sturdy 100% cotton fabric. Additional pocket to insert another filter for added protection. Fits snugly but comfortably. Secured with elastic bands around the ears. Easy to hand wash and dry overnight. *Postage not included
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GU PROMOTION
Room Types, Prices and Features • Single room private bathrooms • Double room private bathrooms • Stella Langford large/medium apartments • Double rooms with separate lounge and private bathrooms • Barkly Place and Barry Street apartments
• 7 breakfasts, 7 dinners delivered to rooms during lockdown • Bed linen • Weekly housekeeping • Wifi • Utilities (electricity, gas, water) included in rent • Short term accommodation – one night, a few weeks • Long term accommodation – months, semesters, years
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GU PROMOTION
Stay at Graduate House because you are ... a PhD student needing access to the library
a Masters student needing to do experiments in the lab a regional student seeking to live in Melbourne with students of different disciplines and countries
an international student seeking a safe, warm home
a lecturer returning to campus for two days of faceto-face assessments and tutorials a visiting professor giving a series of talks to colleagues
a medical or allied health student on a clinical placement
part of a small group that is returning to campus for face-to-face classes over a few days a clinician working, teaching and researching at the hospital 17
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REVIEW
August Monthly Luncheon – MS Ambassador Dr Kate Cherry
in the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) since 2017.
It was a welcome return for our first Monthly Luncheon since March because of the COVID-19 pandemic. The August Monthly Luncheon was held on Wednesday, 5th August and was an online only event due to the continuing pandemic and Stage 4 restrictions in Melbourne. However, it was wonderful to see the faces of Members and friends who joined us via Zoom, a software platform used for teleconferencing, which enabled us all to get together remotely.
What is multiple sclerosis? The words are from the Greek language, and mean “many scars”. MS is a disease of the central nervous system where you can develop plaques (or lesions) anywhere in the brain or spinal cord. Consequently, it can impact any part of your body as your nervous system controls everything you do. There are both relapsing and progressive forms of MS. Anyone can get MS. Typically, it is diagnosed in people aged 20 to 40, roughly three times as many women have it compared with men (and the rate is increasing). There is a wide range of symptoms including numbness and tingling, headaches, dizziness, cognitive dysfunction, vision problems, depression, emotional changes, fatigue, muscle spasms, difficulty with walking, temperature sensitivity, etc.
Our guest speaker was Multiple Sclerosis (MS) Ambassador, Dr Kate Cherry. MS Ambassadors are inspirational volunteers who are either living with multiple sclerosis or caring for someone who has this condition. Kate started the Monthly Luncheon by describing two versions of herself. Version one: She graduated from The University of Melbourne with a Bachelor of Medicine and a Bachelor of Surgery (MBBS) in 1992 and became an infectious diseases physician in 2000. While working, Kate also completed a PhD in 2004 and a Graduate Diploma in Clinical Epidemiology at Monash University in 2005. Currently, she has three jobs: a Clinician at Alfred Health, a research role at the Burnet Institute, and on the Board of Directors at the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre since 2017. Kate also has various academic appointments, teaches, is on various committees, has received grants from various research funding bodies, given invited talks, won awards and had many publications.
From a young age, Kate always dreamed of being a doctor, and she achieved her dream by getting into The University of Melbourne class of 1987 for first year Medicine. She was in the same class as Brett Sutton, who everyone knows today as the Chief Health Officer of Victoria. Kate noted that this was the first group of medical students where women outnumbered men, something that the Dean was very excited about on the day they started. Kate also played viola in a string quartet during her university days. By 1990 – fourth year medicine – Kate had moved on to the Austin Hospital Clinical School, and she graduated in 1992 with an MBBS.
Version two: In 2002 – halfway through her PhD – Kate was diagnosed with relapsing-remitting Multiple Sclerosis (rrMS) and is the “proud owner of a multi-volume hospital file at the Royal Melbourne (Hospital), the sort which, in the days of paper medical records, if you dropped it on your foot, you might break something”. Although she has three jobs, she, in fact, works part-time – supported by the MS Disability Employment Service (DES) – and has been an active participant www.graduatehouse.com.au
“In 2002, in many ways, my life started to change,” Kate said. She started having “presyncopal” (before a faint) vision changes at the gym, and was unable to see the television screens at the front of the gym. It progressively became worse over the next few weeks, even though her eyesight was fine when she wasn’t exercising. “Soon, just the act of walking from the car park into the Alfred meant that when I first arrived in clinic, I couldn’t see the 18
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Dr Kate Cherry (top right) with Members, family and friends at the August Monthly Luncheon via Zoom.
was 18 years ago and, fortunately, Kate does not have a walking disability, one of the many symptoms of MS.
computer screen for the first 15 minutes or so,” she recalled. After seeing an ophthalmologist and neurologist and having several tests over a few months, she sought a second opinion from another neurologist who was more experienced in dealing with MS and who was “horrified that I hadn’t been given a diagnosis (of MS), and gave me one on the spot, and then gave me a prescription for, what was then, the most effective treatment”. Kate was 32, single, with a mortgage, dreaming of marriage and having children and wanting to continue her medical career. Her biggest question was “what’s my prognosis?” The verdict from the neurologist: “Let me put it this way: 10 years from now, I don’t believe you will be capable of doing the job you do now, from a mobility perspective.” Kate reflected on how unhelpful this comment was – and (in retrospect) all the more so because the prognosis of anyone with MS is really unpredictable. That
With her diagnosis of MS, the impacts on Kate forced changes to her life: after completing her PhD, she completed a Graduate Diploma in Clinical Epidemiology at Monash University in 2005 in case she needed a more sedentary career; paid off her mortgage as quickly as possible; shattered her long term plans; and what she calls “this taxi turned its light off” – a subconscious decision that “since I was heading for a life I didn’t want, I wasn’t going to involve anyone else”, which perhaps partly explains why she remains single. In 2006, four years after her diagnosis, “out of sheer frustration”, she tried a treatment rarely used, and “it turned out to be the miracle treatment for me”. “My disease turned off virtually 19
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challenges, retain the dreams”, which Kate loves. She doesn’t think she did a great job at either in the early years after her diagnosis, but now thinks she’s doing better. For example, Kate is now having music lessons again, and is enjoying playing the viola every day again.
overnight on the first dose and it’s still what I’m taking now. I suddenly became someone who had relatively stable disease and rarely had flares.” But it wasn’t perfect, as Kate was still living with problems like unreliable vision and fatigue and having to alter her life to accommodate these things.
Although not glad she has MS, Kate celebrates the positives that have accompanied this change to her life. She has made some wonderful friends in the MS community, found improved quality of life by rearranging and prioritising what is really important to her. Once she stopped focusing on climbing the “ladder of success”, she discovered the view is just right from where she is! She also has a great sense of humour, as was demonstrated throughout her address.
In 2010, eight years after her diagnosis, Kate closed the laboratory she was running at the Burnet Institute and cut her work hours which was “the best decision I ever made”. At the 10 year mark, in 2012 – when her neurologist had predicted she would have serious mobility issues – she signed up for an MS Walk + Run event. She had never run 5 km in her life, so with her sister, Sarah, and their good friend, Marie, had three months to prepare. They ran at Kate’s speed, one either side of her, “so I couldn’t fall into the (Albert Park) Lake by accident”. She emailed her finish line photo to her neurologist with a single line: “I live to prove you wrong.” Her neurologist – “a very nice man” – was thrilled for Kate. Since then, she has taken every opportunity to send him photos and selfies from places that “one simply can’t get to without climbing a great many stairs”! After a conference she attended in Italy, she sent her neurologist an email with the words: “This photo is the proof I made it up the 463 steps of the dome in Florence – and this email is the proof I made it back down!”
Kate’s Monthly Luncheon address was well received by her online audience, and with only minor technical hitches with Zoom, it was a very inspirational and worthwhile hour, learning about her fascinating journey and the positive contribution she is making by helping and educating all of us about MS.
Kate was angry and offended when “a delightful professor of medicine, responding to my disclosure I had MS” said: “Aren’t you lucky it hasn’t affected you?” This gave Kate a strong sense of “how can I blame the man and woman on the street for not understanding why I sometimes really need a seat on public transport, if a professor of medicine thinks he can judge what I’ve experienced over ten years by the way I look from the outside today?” Since then, Kate has been passionate about wanting the community to not only have a better understanding of MS, but to have a better understanding of invisible illnesses in general. “So, many of the men and women who I look after who live with HIV infection are essentially unaffected. But for many of them also, it’s a really life-altering and lifeimpacting diagnosis and most of them also look well. So, that’s one of the reasons I became an MS ambassador.”
Dr Kate Cherry.
The motto of the MS Society is “Face the
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FIRST NATIONS
Wominjeka
(Welcome)
Midnight Oil returns to Gadigal land How can we dance when our earth is turning? How do we sleep while our beds are burning? How can we dance when our earth is turning? How do we sleep while our beds are burning? At the 2000 Sydney Olympic Games, they performed the song in black uniforms bearing the white slogan, “sorry”. Midnight Oil drummer, Rob Hirst, recently told Koori Radio, “hopefully ‘Gadigal Land’ will spread the Gadigal name a bit further and people will start to understand that the Gadigal people, part of the larger Aboriginal Nations, are the original Australians here and we’ve got to pay more attention to that.”
Following their The Great Circle world tour of 2017, Australia’s iconic rock band, Midnight Oil have released their first new music since 2003. The song, “Gadigal Land” – the title acknowledges the traditional owners south and west of Sydney Harbour – is from The Makarrata Project, an Indigenous rights-themed mini-album, made in collaboration with more First Nations’ musicians and set for release in October. A new studio album is also due in 2021, their first since 2002’s Capricornia. Midnight Oil has promised to donate any proceeds from “Gadigal Land” to The Uluru Statement From The Heart – a call from First Nations people for greater representation and autonomy in government affairs – and other Indigenous reconciliation organisations. Sony Music Entertainment Australia has also promised to match any artist contribution. “Makarrata” is a Yolngu word for a process of truth-telling, resolution and justice. “We feel that the country needs to make some progress on that,” lead singer Peter Garrett – former Minister in the Rudd and Gillard governments – told radio station Triple M recently. “We’re not coming back with another ‘great big Midnight Oil song’ necessarily, we’re coming back with something we need to care about and we feel that needs to be said.” The band is joined on the song by First Nations collaborators Dan Sultan, the Stiff Gins’ Kaleena Briggs and co-writers Bunna Lawrie and Gadigal poet Joel Davison. The song ends on a climactic shout-out to their various homelands: Arrernte, Gurindji, Wiradjuri, Yorta Yorta, Mirning and Gadigal.
“It’s dedicated to a greater awareness of what is contained in the Uluru Statement From the Heart. We really need to get behind it, especially the ‘makarrata’ part of it,” he said, referring to the Yolngu concept of truth-telling, resolving conflict and moving forward. So welcome to Gadigal land Wenyo wenyo wenyo! Welcome to Wiradjuri land Welcome to Yorta Yorta land Welcome to Arrernte land Welcome to Mirning land Welcome to Gurindji land All of the lands Welcome! ***
Midnight Oil have long displayed their support and advocacy for Indigenous rights. Alongside nuclear, environmental and other power balance issues, a curiosity about Australian Indigenous history had been gnawing at the band’s conscience for years, but their Blackfella/Whitefella outback tour with the Warumpi Band galvanised their Diesel and Dust album’s theme in 1987. “Beds Are Burning” remains their signature hit:
“Beds Are Burning”, 2000 Sydney Olympic Games: https://bit.ly/31Ajb9t
The time has come to say fair’s fair To pay the rent, to pay our share The time has come, a fact’s a fact It belongs to them, let’s give it back
“Gadigal Land”: https://bit.ly/31vfVMA
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SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GOALS
COVID-19 Stalls Progress on Global Goals SDG Goals
The world only has 10 years left to achieve the goals of the UN’s 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, to which more than 150 world leaders committed in 2015.
The United Nations Conference on Trade and Development’s (UNCTAD) SDG Pulse – UNCTAD’s annual statistical publication reporting on developments relating to the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) – shows that progress on critical targets of the sustainable development goals has stalled amid the coronavirus crisis.
“Despite COVID-19, despite containment, despite everyone working from home, it was very important for us to publish the SDG Pulse on time,” said UNCTAD’s Head of Statistics and Information, Steve MacFeely.
The purpose of the report, published on 8th July 2020, is to:
“The development challenges facing the world didn’t stop or go away, so it’s important that we continue to report progress towards the 2030 Agenda, and the important role that UNCTAD plays in that journey,” Mr MacFeely said.
• provide an update on the evolution of a selection of official SDG indicators and complementary data and statistics; • provide progress reports on the development of new concepts and methodologies for UNCTAD custodian indicators; and
Far-reaching impact of pandemic This year’s bulletin is no ordinary update, as the effects of COVID-19 are evident throughout the report.
• showcase, beyond the perspective of the formal SDG indicators, how UNCTAD is contributing to the implementation of the 2030 Agenda.
The impact is evident in the trade of international goods, for which UNCTAD now forecasts a decline of almost 27 per cent for the second quarter of 2020, compared with the same quarter last year. The organisation also forecasts a fall of 20 per cent in merchandise trade for the whole year.
Every year, the SDG Pulse highlights a specific aspect of the 2030 Agenda and discusses this issue from the slant or perspective of statistics. The 2020 edition discusses the economic, social and environmental impacts of COVID-19 and its implications for the continuation of statistical production.
For instance, SDG target 17.11 aims to significantly increase the exports of developing countries, and in particular to double the share of least developed countries (LDCs) in global exports by 2020.
As UNCTAD warned, when it launched the 2020 edition of its SDG Pulse, the COVID-19 pandemic is pushing critical economic, social and environmental development targets out of reach.
Although LDCs had been achieving modest growth in market share, COVID-19 has likely pushed the target beyond reach.
UNCTAD’s online annual update, tracking progress on a range of indicators of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals, shows that poverty, inequality, the climate crisis, unsustainable production and other pressing challenges require even more urgent action due to COVID-19.
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Another shocking result featured in this year’s update is that the coronavirus-induced recordbreaking fall of 5 per cent in carbon dioxide emissions – compared with the same period in 2019 – will not be enough to achieve even the weakest of the targets set out by the Paris Agreement on climate change. 22
SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GOALS
The share of global exports of goods and services by least developed countries. Source: UNCTAD’s SDG Pulse
Greenhouse gas emissions and target reductions (Gt of CO2e). Source: SDG Pulse
Trends of goods and services trade in developing economies. Source: SDG Pulse
Global emissions must be cut by almost 8 per cent every year for the next decade to keep the world within reach of the 1.5°C target of the climate agreement. The magnitude of that task has been laid bare by COVID-19.
The update also highlights the impacts on global statistics more generally, discussing how official statistics have had to adapt very quickly.
“This report will every year, highlight a thematic issue of immediate relevance. This year’s theme addresses the many impacts of COVID-19 from COVID-19 from a statistical point of view a statistical perspective. In particular, the This year’s In Focus section of the update looks conceptual and organisational challenges being at COVID-19 from a statistical perspective, examining the measurement challenges associated faced by national statistical offices around the world, and some of the implications for global with the pandemic itself, the different policy official statistics. The report also discusses some actions adopted by governments and the impact of the measurement challenges in producing new, on employment by gender. comparable COVID-19 statistics in the midst of a “While we discuss the impacts of COVID-19 crisis,” Mr MacFeely said. throughout the report, we also explore the *** measurement issues and the implications for UNCTAD’s SDG Pulse: https://sdgpulse.unctad.org/ statistics itself,” Mr MacFeely said. 23
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INNOVATION
Scientists pull living microbes, possibly 100 million years old, from beneath the sea By Elizabeth Pennisi
Microbes buried beneath the sea floor for more than 100 million years are still alive, a new study reveals. When brought back to the lab and fed, they started to multiply. The microbes are oxygen-loving species that somehow exist on what little of the gas diffuses from the ocean surface deep into the seabed.
completely lacking the nutrients needed for survival. When they extracted cores of clay and other sediments from as deep as 5,700 metres below sea level, they confirmed the samples did indeed contain some oxygen, a sign that there was very little organic material for bacteria to eat.
The discovery raises the “insane” possibility, as one of the scientists put it, that the microbes have been sitting in the sediment dormant, or at least growing slowly without dividing, for eons.
To explore what life might be there, Morono’s team carefully extracted small clay samples from the centres of the drilled cores, put them in glass vials, and added simple compounds, such as acetate and ammonium, that contained heavier forms — or isotopes — of nitrogen and carbon that could be detected in living microbes. On the day when the group first “fed” the mud samples with these compounds, and up to 557 days later, the team extracted bits of clay from the samples and dissolved it to spot any living microbes — despite the lack of food for them in the clay.
The new work demonstrates “microbial life is very persistent, and often finds a way to survive,” says Virginia Edgcomb, a microbial ecologist at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution who was not involved in the work. What is more, by showing that life can survive in places biologists once thought uninhabitable, the research speaks to the possibility of life elsewhere in the Solar System, or elsewhere in the universe. “If the surface of a particular planet does not look promising for life, it may be holding out in the subsurface,” says Andreas Teske, a microbiologist at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, who was also not involved with the new study.
The work was challenging. Typically, there are at least 100,000 cells per cubic centimetre of seafloor mud. But in these samples, there were no more than 1,000 bacteria in the same amount of sediment. So, the biologists had to develop specialised techniques such as using chemical tracers to detect whether any contaminating seawater got into the samples and developing a way to analyse very small amounts of cells and isotopes. “The preparation and care needed to do this work was really impressive,” says Kenneth Nealson, an environmental microbiologist retired from the University of Southern California.
Researchers have known that life exists “under the floorboards” of the ocean for more than 15 years. But geomicrobiologist Yuki Morono of the Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology wanted to know the limits of such life. Microbes are known to live in very hot or toxic environments, but can they live where there is little food to eat?
The added nutrients woke up a variety of oxygenusing bacteria. In samples from the 101.5-millionyear-old layer, the microbes increased by four orders of magnitude to more than 1 million cells per cubic centimetre after 65 days, the team reports in Nature Communications.
To find out, Morono and his colleagues mounted a drilling expedition in the South Pacific Gyre, a site of intersecting ocean currents east of Australia that is considered the deadest part of the world’s oceans, almost www.graduatehouse.com.au
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INNOVATION
make those isolated in this study the distant descendants of ancestors millions of years old.
Others have found bacteria in oxygenated sediments under the sea floor. Last year, William Orsi, a geobiologist at the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich described living bacteria from 15-million-year-old sediments, a previous record. “But this study pushes it back by another order of magnitude in terms of geological time,” Orsi notes.
But there’s so little food in the deep-sea sediments that any microbes there could most likely do little more than repair any damaged molecules. “If they are not dividing at all, they are living for 100 million years, but that seems insane,” says Steve D’Hondt, an oceanographer at the University of Rhode Island, Bay Campus, and co-author of the study. He wonders whether there’s another unrecognised source of energy — perhaps radioactivity — down there that allows slow division by the bacteria, which likely got trapped in these sediments as they were buried by other settling sediments. But the bottom line, says Bo Barker Jørgensen, a marine microbiologist at Aarhus University who was not involved with the work, is “low food and energy seem not to set the ultimate limit for life on Earth”.
Bacteria isolated from 100-million-year-old clay. Photo: JAMSTEC
***
Genetic analysis of the microbes revealed that they belonged to more than eight known bacterial groups, many of which are commonly found elsewhere in saltwater where they play important roles in breaking down organic matter. “It suggests that learning to survive under conditions of extreme energy limitation is a widespread ability,” Nealson says, one that may have evolved early, when there was not much for microbes to feed on. “It may have been a very handy survival trick.”
Elizabeth Pennisi is a senior correspondent covering many aspects of biology for Science. This article was originally published in Science on 28th July 2020.
The researchers do not know what the gyre microbes have been doing all these millions of years. Most of the species they found do not form spores, which are an inactive life stage that some bacteria form in unfavourable conditions. It could be the bacteria have been dividing very slowly all this time, which would 25
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