Two major medical research projects spearheaded at St George and Sutherland hospitals are promising breakthroughs in inflammatory diseases like arthritis and in the treatment of brain injury.
Details were announced this week at a major international medical symposium held in the St George Bank auditorium in Kogarah.
CEO of the St George and Sutherland Medical Research Foundation, Peter Christopher, announced more than $700,000 in research grants at the Symposium.
“The Foundation’s aim is to improve our community’s healthcare and we believe that in our latest round of grants we have kicked some big goals,” Mr Christopher said.
“We have attracted a world-renowned international researcher from Harvard Medical School for two years to work with Professor Steve Krilis’s leading gastroenterology and immunology teams.
“Professor Richard Stevens’s arrival from the US is a boost for our research community and the project he’s working on has attracted international attention.
“This boosts the reputation of our two hospitals.”
The Foundation also announced this week a major grant to Professor John Myburgh’s intensive care team to broaden work on brain injury.
Professor Myburgh is leading an international collaboration on how controlling temperature improves brain trauma outcomes. The intensive care unit sees one person a week with major brain injury according to ICU specialist Dr Manoj Saxena.
Mr Christopher said Foundation grants this year include research on back pain, cancer, strokes and heart attacks, blood poisoning, complications in pregnancy and chronic lung disease.
The chair of the Foundation Professor John Edmonds said St George Bank’s support of medical research over nearly a decade was culminating in some outstanding achievements at the hospitals.
Professor Edmonds also announced that Sir Michael Parkinson, Lady Mary Parkinson and Australian author Peter FitzSimons had agreed to become the Foundation’s inaugural patrons.
“We are so proud to have such distinguished people supporting the Foundation.”
Trauma talks
- More than 150 leading intensive care doctors and nurses attended the inaugural Neurocritical Care Symposium held in the St George Bank auditorium in Kogarah. The symposium attracted an international expert, Professor David Menon, as the keynote speaker acknowledging the hospital’s reputation and the research undertaken there.
