The Ritchie on Catalyst

ABC's Catalyst program this week featured nanotechnology and health. A major story involved Monash University and The Ritchie Centre.

Professor James Friend from the Department of Mechanical Engineering profiled his innovative nanoparticle drug delivery system Respire - a system of delivering drugs deep into the lungs. James highlighted how such a device could improve treatments for asthma and offer new approaches to treating cystic fibrosis. Diabetics could receive insulin via Respire. Just think - no more needles!

Professor Euan Wallace, The Ritchie's Director, discussed the work that he and Graham Jenkin have been leading - the delivery of placental cells (amnion cells) deep into the premature baby's lung repairing damage and re-growing new lung. This research promises to be the first effective treatment for bronchopulmonary dysplasia (BPD), a lung disease affecting tiny very preterm babies. A recent paper published in the leading journal Cell Transplantation describes some of this work, done by Sean Murphy when he was a PhD student with Euan and Graham.

Monash University offers a unique health research environment in Australia - offering world leading mechanical bioengineering, innovative stem cell biology, and a world class clinical perinatal centre at Monash Medical Centre.

The Ritchie Centre at Monash - where tomorrow's cures are made today.

Another week, another award for a Ritchie scientist

Congratulations to Dr Claudia Nold!

This week Claudia was awarded the prestigious Christina Fleischmann Memorial Award by the International Society for Interferon and Cytokine Research. The Christina Fleischmann Memoral Award is an annual award to an early career woman scientist, recognizing an outstanding contribution to the field of cytokine research. At The Ritchie Centre, Claudia leads a research program on IL-37 and on activated protein C as possible treatments for major diseases in very preterm babies, such as chronic lung disease and necrotizing enterocolitis. This award is well deserved for the outstanding work Claudia and her team are doing.

The Ritchie Welcomes all to the 2011 Student Open Day

Wednesday 17th August 5pm

@ Monash Institute of Medical Research & Monash Medical Centre

All students of science, medicine, nursing and midwifery are warmly invited to join Ritchie Centre staff and students to hear about research and training opportunities in 2012 and beyond.

Interested in an Honours degree? In a PhD? Or a Masters?

Are you a science student, or a medic, or a midwife?

Then this is for YOU

Come along and hear all about the cool research that is being done in women's health, pregnancy, fetal and neonatal health, paediatrics, stem cells and regenerative medicine.

It's all happening at The Ritchie Centre and you could be part of it.

Come on. You know you want to.

IT WILL CHANGE YOUR LIFE.

Tiny lives, tiny breaths but huge challenges

In the Australian Newspaper recently, Professor Stuart Hooper of the Ritchie Centre highlighted the challenges facing tiny newborn babies. Stuart is a world leading expert on fetal lung development. Over the past few years, his research has been re-writing the "How To" textbooks on caring for premature babies. Using advanced technology such as the Synchrotron, Stuart and his group have shown just how traditional resuscitation methods can damage a baby's lungs. Thanks to his work, tomorrow's babies with breath much easier.

Read more at: http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/health/technological-evolution-a-breath-of-fresh-air/story-fn59nokw-1226103667442

Euan Wallace, Director

The placenta, sex and stress

We all know that girls and boys are different – but what you might not know is that the placenta of a female baby is different to the placenta of a male baby.
In a recent study in the spiny mouse – a mouse that looks and develops quite differently to the ‘normal’ mouse, it was found that female placentas and male placentas are different in terms of how the placenta looks and the genes that are expressed in the placenta. Not only this, but when we mildly stressed the pregnant mother (we gave the mother a man-made form of her natural stress hormone), the placenta of a female fetus responded to the stress differently to the placenta of a male fetus.

What were some of the differences?
Placentas collected from stress-free mothers were different between the sexes in terms of how much of the mothers’ blood was able to enter/exit the placenta and the expression of a gene (Insulin-like growth factor 1 receptor) important in the growth of the baby and the placenta.
Placentas collected from stressed mothers, were different between the sexes depending on how long after the stress we examined the placenta. For example very soon after we stopped stressing the mother, the structure and gene expression in the placenta was similar between males and females (although very different from non-stressed placentas), but when we examined the placenta 2 weeks after we stopped stressing the mother, the placenta was different for a male and female baby. One such difference was in the expression of the glucose transporter in the placenta. Glucose is very important for the functioning of the placenta and for the growth and development of the baby and we found that after stress, the placenta of a male baby had lower expression of the glucose transporter in the placenta compared to the placenta of a female baby.

What does this mean?
Honestly, we don’t really know what this all means, but we aren’t the first researchers to identify differences in placental structure between the sexes – the differences have even been seen in humans.
This area of research has many more questions to answer and one of the most important questions this study raises is, if a mother gets stressed during pregnancy, should the recommended treatment depend on whether she is carrying a male or female baby?

Read the full article here - http://www.biolreprod.org/cgi/content/abstract/biolreprod.111.093369

German Research Award for Ritchie Centre Scientist

Dr Marcel Nold has been awarded the 2011 Georges Köhler Prize for oustanding scientific research by the German Society for Immunology. The award is named after the Nobel Laureate Professor Georges Jean Franz Köhler (1946-1995) who described the principles underlying the generation of monoclonal antibodies.

Together with his wife, Claudia, Marcel's work is focussed on developing novel treatments for premature newborn babies with life-threatening diseases such as necrotising enterocolitis and bronchopulmonary dysplasia. Research such as this promises to save countless future lives. Well done Marcel and Claudia.

Euan Wallace, Director

Ritchie Centre Scientist wins National Award

Associate Professor Caroline Gargett - a Deputy Director of the Centre and Head of the Women's Health Research Theme - has been announced as the recipient of the 2011 Society for Reproductive Biology-RCRH Award for Excellence in Reproductive Biology Research.

This is an outstanding achievement.

Well done and congratulations, Caroline.

Euan Wallace

Director

38th Fetal and Neonatal Physiological Society Meeting

Many members of the Ritchie Centre, recently attended the 38^th Fetal and Neonatal Physiological Society (FNPS) meeting held in sunny Palm Cove, Australia. FNPS is an international meeting, which brings together physiologists, obstetricians and neonatologists in an informal setting, to discuss new ideas and research outcomes from established and new investigators.

This year, 29 members of the Ritchie Centre attended the FNPS meeting and collectively gave 11 oral presentations, 10 posters and 3 poster-blitz presentations. This equates to 24% of the program of FNPS being occupied by Ritchie Centre staff/students – a very impressive effort.

Equally as impressive was the fact that 2 members of the Ritchie Centre were on the team that won the annual sporting event – always the social highlight of the meeting and a great chance for students (and established researchers) to interact with our overseas colleagues.

Presentations from the Ritchie Centre explored the effects of pre-eclampsia, birth asphyxia, neonatal ventilation, viral infection and inflammation on the fetus, mother and offspring. These effects were looked at in many organs including the brain, lungs, immune system, kidney and heart, and treatments for many of these effects included caffeine, human amnion epithelial cells, creatine and melatonin.

Of course the greatest congratulations must go to Dr. Tamara Yawno and Ms Stacey Ellery for winning the best early post-doc presentation and best poster prize respectively.

Public Lectures on Cot Death - Kaarene Fitzgerald Lectures 2011

Last night - Tuesday 14th June - we held the 2011 Kaarene Fitzgerald Lectures, a public event held at The Ritchie Centre to honour the late Kaarene Fitzgerald and the outstanding contributions she made to better understanding Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS), more commonly called cot death. These lectures have been an important annual event on the Centre's calender since 2004.

Last night there were three speakers - A/Professor Rosemary Horne, from The Ritchie Centre; Dr Dawn Elder, from University of Otago, Wellington; and Dr Jhodie Duncan, from the Florey Neuroscience Institute, Melbourne.

Rosemary told us all about how blood pressure changes during sleep and how sleeping babies on their tummy lowers blood pressure a lot and decreases how much oxygen gets to the brain. This is thought to be a likely cause of a baby being unable to wake up during episodes of breathing difficulties and so help to explain SIDS. A baby is most at risk when she/he is 2 to 3 months old. Never sleep a baby on its tummy, always lay the baby on its back.

Dawn described her work in New Zealand, asking the same about sleeping positions but this time for premature babies in Special Care Nurseries in hospital. Premature babies are usually cared for lying on their tummy but parents are then told to always lie them on their back when they go home. How so? Dawn's results showed how babies in Special Care can be cared for on their back, just like at home, without any problems. Her work will inform how babies are best looked after in hospital and will better guide parents to care for their baby once they take her/him home from hospital.

Jhodie shared the research that she undertook during the time she spent in Boston, USA. She has been looking at some of the control systems deep in a baby's brain that regulate sleep, blood pressure and breathing. She has been particularly interested in special nerves that make serotonin. Serotonin is thought to be essential for some of our most basic functions such as breathing. Jhodie showed that the levels of serotonin in the brains of babies that died from SIDS was much lower than normal. She also showed that smoking - a major risk factor for SIDS - reduced serotonin levels in the brain even further. Jhodie's work is uncovering some key causes of SIDS and may lead to prevention programs for very high risk babies in the future.

Remember, smoking in pregnancy puts your unborn baby at unnecessary risk of premature birth and stillbirth. Smoking increases the risk of SIDS five-fold.

Every cigarette you DON'T smoke is a good one.

What a great night it was. Thanks to all the speakers.

Looking forward to the 2012 Kaarene Fitzgerald Lectures already.

Euan Wallace, Director

Welcome to The Ritchie Centre Blog

Welcome to The Ritchie Centre blog.

Let me introduce us.

The Ritchie Centre is a research centre in the Monash Institute of Medical Research at Monash University. We are located at Monash Medical Centre in Clayton, Melbourne, Australia.

The Ritchie is a leading Australian research centre for the study of women's and children's health. Our scientists are working to answer the important questions about pregnancy health, fetal development, the newborn baby and women's health. We are committed to better health for babies and women by better understanding what makes us less healthy. At the Ritchie Centre, tomorrow's treatments are being developed today.

So, why a blog?

We have over 120 staff and students at The Ritchie. Our scientists and clinicians are world experts in their fields. We hope that our blog will allow us to share what we know with you, answer questions about our work or related work, and share some of the exciting new ideas and studies going on in our laboratories and at Monash Medical Centre.

Did you know,

- we are working on cures for cerebral palsy?

- our work is changing how newborn babies are resuscitated at birth?

- we have developed a new treatment for preeclampsia?

- we are creating ways to ventilate tiny premature babies to better protect their lungs?

- we are trying to find out what wakes babies up from sleep to better understand SIDS

- we are studying how stress in pregnancy may affect the unborn baby?

- we use normal placentas to create stem cells for regenerative medicine?

- we study how the lining of the womb works and why some women may develop cancer?

..... and so, so, so much more?

Well, that's all for now. A very quick "Hello, here we are".

In future blogs you will hear a lot more about our work. Follow us, ask us questions, let us know what interests you about our work.

Euan Wallace, Director