MIME News - Wednesday 14 September

If you would like a story added to our next newsletter please contact Susan Newland at mime-enquiries@monash.edu

Congratulations to the Successful 2016 MIME Seed Fund Teams

The MIME Seed Fund was established in 2015 to accelerate the development of new medical technologies that address significant unmet clinical needs. The inaugural round was designed to lay the foundations for the collaborative framework of MIME, by encouraging early clinician involvement in identifying areas of significant clinical need, so that our research effort could be directed to areas where greatest impact could be achieved. The program was aimed at building and strengthening collaborative relationships between MNHS clinicians in Monash's partner hospitals and researchers in the Faculties of Engineering and IT, as well as reaching out to researchers in other disciplines and partner organisations. Finally the program helps build a pipeline of medical technologies and eHealth solutions, aimed at clinically relevant problems that can be taken forward onto the next stage of development in partnership with funding agencies, investors, donors, industry and hospitals.

Building on the success of the inaugural 2015 MIME Seed Fund round, the 2016 MIME Seed Fund round has proven to be an overwhelming success with 57 unmet clinical need statements submitted by our clinicians as part of phase 1 of the program. In phase 2 of the program, where researchers and clinicians came together to submit joint research proposals, we received over 43 applications in total. After extensive review and interviews, over $800 000 in seed funding has been awarded, and a further $150 000 co-committed by CSIRO.

We would like to thank all clinicians who submitted an unmet clinical need and all researchers and clinicians who submitted a project proposal. We extend our congratulations to the top sixteen successful project teams listed below. 

We look forward to the 2017 MIME Seed Fund round being as successful. Details regarding the 2017 round will be available on the MIME website early in 2017.

ID	Title of Project	Clinical  Champion	Collaborators
51	Robotic  transperineal  prostate  cancer biopsy	A/Prof Jeremy Grummet  Urologist	Lead CI Dr Chao Chen (eng)
33	Enhancing colonoscopic  visualisation and control	Dr Mayur Garg Consultant Gastroenterologist	Lead CI Dr Song Chaoyang (eng) Additional Team Prof Sunita Chauhan (eng)
57	3D-bioprinted scaffold of trapezium  in basal thumb arthritis management	Prof Julian Smith Head of Department of Surgery  Monash Medical Centre	Lead CI Laurence Meagher (eng) Additional Team Dr Andrey Molotnikov (eng), Dr Jessica Frith (eng), A/Prof David Hunter-Smith (med), Dr Warren Rozen (med), Dr Michael P. Chae (med), Prof Graham Jenkin (Monash Health), Prof Anthony Atala (Wake Forest Institute), Dr Sean V Murphy (Wake Forest School of Medicine), Dr Kanika Jain (Hudson Institute)
9	Jaundiced infants-Expanding home care	Dr Katrina Harris Medical lead, Monash Children's@Home	Lead CI Prof Wei Shen (eng) Additional Team Dr Charles Barfield (Monash Medical Centre), Dr James Doery (Monash Medical Centre), Dr Liyuan Zhang, Ms Amanda Vantin (Monash Medical Centre), Dr Stephen Wang (MADA), Dr Mark Bown (CSIRO), Dr Jenny O’Connell (CSIRO), Dr Andrew Scully (CSIRO), Dr Chris Dunn (CSIRO)
6	Rational mesh design for urogynaecological surgery	A/Prof Anna Rosamilia Head Pelvic Floor Clinic, Monash Health	Lead CI A/Prof Caroline  Gargett (med) Additional Team Prof Chris Davies (eng), Professor Jerome Werkmeister (CSIRO),Dr Dayalan Gunasegaram (CSIRO), Dr Sharon Edwards (CSIRO)
25	Surface modifications prevent driveline infection	Prof David McGiffin Director Cardiothoracic Surgery & Transplantation Alfred Health	Lead CI A/Prof John Forsythe (eng) Additional Team Prof Laurence Meagher (eng), Dr Yue Qu (eng), Dr. Helmut Thissen (CSIRO)
21	Monitoring back movement and function	Prof Flavia Cicuttini Head Musculoskeletal Unit Alfred Health	Lead CI Dr Pari Delir Haghighi (IT) Additional Team Prof Frada Burstein (IT), Dr Stephen Jia Wang (MADA), Prof Wenlong Cheng (eng)
39	The diabetic sensate footwear project	Dr Alan Saunder Unit Head Vascular and Transplant Surgery Monash Health	Lead CI Prof Jon McCormack (IT) Additional Team Prof Mark Armstrong (MADA), Prof Daphne Flynn (MADA), Prof Arthur de Bono (MADA), Tina Dinh (MADA), Kieran John (MADA)
18a	Personalizing cancer treatments	Prof Magdalena Plebanski  Head of Vaccines and Infectious Diseases Unit	Lead CI Prof Magdalena Plebanski (med) Additional Team Dr Simon Corrie (eng), A/Prof Tom Jobling (Monash Health), Dr Andrew Stephens (Hudson)
20	Cardiovascular modeling with MRI	A/Prof Andrew Taylor Head of Non-Invasive Imaging, Alfred Cardiology	Lead CI Prof Murray Rudman (eng) Additional Team Prof Mark Thompson (eng), Dr Ben Costello (Baker), Dr Sina Sinaie (eng), A/Prof Andre La Gerche (Baker)
37	Risk-adjusted reporting intensive care efficiency	Prof David Pilcher, Senior Intensivist, Alfred Intensive Care Unit, & Chair of ANZICS Centre for Outcomes and Resource Evaluation	Lead CI Prof Geoff Webb (IT) Additional Team Dr Christoph Bergmeir (IT), Dr Lahn Straney (med)
35a	3D printer hand prostheses	Dr Lisa O'Brien, State Convenor (Vic/Tas) of Australian Hand Therapy Association special interest group	Lead CI Dr Chao Chen (eng)
2	Health behaviours in dysglycaemia	Prof Christopher Gilfillan, Director of Endocrinology Eastern Health	Lead CI Prof Sunita Chauhan (eng)  Additional Team Dr Faezeh Marzbanrad (eng), Prof Frada Burstein (IT), Dr Sarah Boyd (IT), Prof Daphne Flynn (MADA)
4	Virtual reality social cognitive training	Prof Paul Fitzgerald, Professor of Psychiatry, Monash Alfred Psychiatry Research Centre	Lead CI Prof Jon McCormack (IT) Additional Team Elliott Wilson (IT), Mike Yeats, Patrick Hutchings (IT)
50	3D printed arm splints	A/Prof Jim Buttery, Research Director, Monash Children's Hospital	Lead CI Dr Andrey Molotnikov (eng) Additional Team Prof Chris Davies (eng)
7b	Burn wound management: Bioactive technology	Dr Heather Cleland Director, Victorian Adult Burns Service Alfred Health	Lead CI Dr Jess Frith (eng) Additional Team Prof Laurence Meagher (eng), Prof Neil Cameron (eng) Dr Rebecca Lim (med), A/Prof Mikaël Martino (med)

Call for Submissions for MIME Travel Grants - $2500

MIME has a number of travel scholarships available for PhD students, postdoctoral fellows and early career researchers (<5 years post PhD award) working on projects that involve medical technologies. By medical technologies we mean a treatment or device to treat a medical condition, a diagnostic tool or IT system or approach directed towards improvement in clinical outcomes. This funding, up to $2500 is to cover some of the costs towards:

      i.         International conference attendance in concert with visits to key groups for further learning, career development and to establish networks and collaborations with high profile international research groups, or

    ii.         Travel for new collaborative work or continue existing collaborations with key international research groups.

The travel should be carried out within the next 12 months, i.e. by 30 September 2017. The closing date for applications is 5 October 2016. Applications should be submitted via the Google Form.

Upcoming MIME Seminars and Events

Thursday 29 September - Dr Andrew Nunn Seminar, Monash University 

11 - 13 October - Monash Health Innovation and Improvement Expo, Monash Medical Centre 

Friday 28 October - Eastern Clinical School Affinity Meeting, Eastern Health 

Congratulations to Andrew Rodda and his successful application with the Jack Brockhoff Foundation

The MIME Management team would like to congratulate Dr Andrew Rodda on receiving an Early-Career medical research grant from the Jack Brockhoff Foundation. His project, "Multiplexed detection of Multiple Myeloma-related mutations in circulating cell-free DNA" is a collaboration with Simon Corrie (Chemical Engineering) and Andrew Spencer (The Alfred, Australian Centre for Blood Disease) that was originally funded through the 2015 MIME seed funding round. The project aims to develop new assay techniques that can be used for screening free-floating DNA in patient blood samples for DNA that contains cancer-related mutations. This will allow clinicians to probe for large numbers of different mutations simultaneously, and thereby choose the most effective forms of treatment based on the mutational status of the patient. The grant will provide $39k to fund the research through to the end of 2017.

MIME Seminar Series Review - Wearable and Point of Care Biodiagnostics Workshop

On Monday 15 August, Professor Wenlong Cheng and Dr Simon Corrie hosted the Wearable and Point of Care Biodiagnostics Workshop as part of the 2016 MIME Seminar Series. The workshop was opened by Professor Frieder Seible and featured two plenary speakers, distinguished Professor Joseph Wang from the University of California, San Diego and Mr Joseph Winter from the Australia Institute of Sports.

Professor Joseph Wang provided a truly engaging morning plenary session on Wearable Electrochemical Sensors: Stretching the Imagination. We received wonderful feedback from our industry partners and our general attendees regarding his session. Professor Joseph Wang is the SAIC Endowed Chair professor and Chairman of the NanoEngineering Department at University of California, San Diego and is Director of the Center for Wearable Sensors at UC San Diego. Professor Wang's research focuses on field of nanobioelectronics aimed at integrating nano- and biomaterials with electronic transducers. He is a leader in a wide range of research areas including nanomachines, nanobioelectronics, and sensing technologies for applications including clinical diagnostics, environmental and security monitoring and remote sensing.

Mr Joseph Winter presented an interesting and insightful afternoon plenary session on Wearable Sensors in Elite Sport, which all attendees found beneficial. Mr Joseph Winter is the Head of Discipline for the AIS Innovation, Research and Development (iRD) area. He provides leadership within the iRD team; coordinating communication with the national network; coordination of the ASC Research, Research to Action and Competitive Innovation funds processes and interfacing with NSWO and AIS high performance personnel including athletes, coaches and support teams. Joseph's professional areas of interest include use of GNSS technologies for high precision metrology applications, leadership, innovation processes and advanced manufacturing methods.

MIME Funded Scholarship SPARK Program

This year MIME was approached to send two students, Chris Daly and Sepideh Motamed to attend the highly prestigious international SPARK Bioinnovation and Entrepreneurship Course hosted by Stanford University, which attracts students globally from many different universities. 

The SPARK program was started at Stanford as a partnership between university and industry with the purpose of providing education and mentorship to facilitate the advancement of research discoveries from the bench to the bedside. The program was initiated based on the experiences of two Stanford Professors, Daria Mochly-Rosen and Kevin Grimes, and a recent PhD student, Dr Leon Chen, regarding taking a novel therapy from the laboratory through the translational process. Since the inception of the SPARK program in 2007 the program has spread to more than 12 countries as a model of translational research. 

Dr Chris Daly has provided us with a brief synopsis relating to his experience. 

"The SPARK Biomedical Innovation and Entrepreneurship Training Course was an incredible experience that opened my eyes to the endless opportunities available to impact the lives of others through healthcare and translational research. I look forward to applying this knowledge during my PhD, throughout my career and also look forward to future collaborations with the international SPARK network. I highly recommend the SPARK program to all those interested in learning more about the process of translating research from the bench to the bedside and look forward to the realization of the potential of the MIME, Monash and Australia in research translation in the future".

MIME hopes to be able to send a further two students to attend the course in 2017. 

MIME News - Wednesday 29 June

If you would like a story added to our next newsletter please contact Susan Newland at mime-enquiries@monash.edu

2016 MIME Seed Fund - Phase 2 Deadline Extended to 1st August

The closing date for phase 2 of the 2016 MIME Seed Fund has now been extended. The new deadline is Monday, 1 August. If you require assistance with organising your multidisciplinary teams please contact MIME's Director of Research, Professor Laurence Meagher laurence.meagher@monash.edu or MIME's Executive Officer, Susan Newland susan.newland@monash.edu. Further details regarding the seed fund process are outlined below. 

Phase 2 of the 2016 MIME Seed Fund is now open. We invite all Monash researchers to peruse the clinical opportunities put forward in phase 1 to identify how your research expertise could potentially contribute to solving a major clinical need. The range of research expertise needed is very broad – such as biomaterials, microfluidics, sensors, mechatronics, wearable technologies, image analysis, data mining, industrial design, CFD, biomarkers and bioinformatics, nanotechnology, decision support and app development.

For those topics where you have relevant expertise and are interested in being part of the solution team, please contact the clinician researcher to discuss the area further. Contact details for each clinician are available on the MIME website within each phase 1 application http://monash.edu/mime/funding/phase-1/.

As many of the clinical needs will require a multidisciplinary team to solve the challenge, MIME is able to assist in arranging workshops or brainstorming sessions for potential team members. Please contact MIME's Executive Officer, Susan Newland susan.newland@monash.edu. 

When your team has formulated a proposed R&D program that addresses the clinical challenge, the lead researcher should submit a phase 2 application for MIME seed funding. This form is available to download from the MIME website http://monash.edu/mime/funding/about-mime-seed-fund.html. 

Up to $50,000 may be requested per project area, to deliver a meaningful outcome within 12-18 months. An additional $50,000 maybe requested if your research team includes one or more CSIRO collaborators. 

Phase 2 applications must be submitted to Susan Newland, susan.newland@monash.edu by Monday, 1 August. Any Monash staff member may submit the application or be part of the team, but the team must include the initiating clinician researcher, and a researcher from either Faculty of Engineering or Faculty of IT. In phase 2, only submissions directly responding to a clinical opportunity put forward in phase 1 are eligible for MIME seed funding.

MIME Medtech Industry Innovators Day

The inaugural MIME Medtech Industry Innovators Day was held on Thursday, 23 June in the New Horizons building at Monash University. Over 160 people attended the event including representatives from industry, government, our partner hospitals, other research institutes and Monash. 

The event was part of MIME's series of forums to bring together clinicians, researchers and industry leaders at the forefront of medtech product innovation to explore new opportunities for collaboration. The event featured a plenary session showcasing presentations from industry leaders who are driving growth of the medtech sector and improved patient outcomes through innovation. Plenary presenters and their topics included:

• Sue MacLeman, MTPConnect – Growth through innovation and collaboration
• Paul D’Urso, Anatomics – 3D Printing revolution in Healthcare
• George Margelis, Intel – Digital health
• Kathy Connell, J&J New ventures – Innovation models 
• Susi Tegen, Medical Technologies Association of Australia - An update from MTAA

Three parallel seminar sessions were hosted in the morning after the plenary session and in the afternoon. Each session featured either an industry or clinical champion relevant to the particular field. Seminar sessions were focused on topics such as: 

• Wearables, sensors & monitoring
• Biomaterials & regen med 
• Digital health & design 
• Surgical simulation & training, 3D printed devices, robotics
• Neuro devices & bionics
• Diagnostics

Some of our industry presenters and their topics for these sessions included:

• Tim Staker, Cabrini Technologies – Integrating healthcare 
• David Rhodes, Admedus – New materials for regenerative medicine
• Derek Minihane, Cochlear – Building an innovative culture
• Sam Lanyon, Planet Innovation – Make it real: beyond R&D to product development
• Elpis Barons, Trajan Scientific and Medical – Trajan Accelerator

In addition to our industry and clinical champions the seminar sessions also featured presentations from MIME researchers at the forefront of research and new technologies that will underpin the next generation of medical technologies. 

Over lunch attendees had the opportunity to view posters on display from our PhD students and ECR and network with the students and other participants. 

The afternoon saw the group reconvene for a panel Q&A session on funding schemes that support collaborative medtech projects. The day ended with the opportunity for attendees to participate in a range of platform and facility tours at the University in key areas of the medtech sector.  

Many participants also stayed on for networking drinks in the evening at the AusBiotech BioBeer and Bubbles event, which was co-hosted with Monash Innovation. 

The day was action packed and was an amazing success. We received wonderful feedback from all involved and look forward to planning our next industry innovators day. If you would like to attend or present at our next event, please let us know.