Congratulations Alistair!
Professor Alistair Jan Gunn has been awarded the 2024 Howard Williams Medal from the Paediatrics & Child Health Division of The Royal Australasian College of Physicians for outstanding contributions to Paediatrics & Child Health in Australia and/or Aotearoa New Zealand. He will receive his medal after giving an oration on his research work at the RACP Congress in May 2024. Alistair is a clinician-scientist known for his high impact, bench to bedside research. He has sought to understand and prevent major causes of death and disability in early childhood, including identifying compromised fetuses in labour, the detection, mechanisms, and treatment of perinatal encephalopathy, prevention of life threatening events in infancy, and improving the care of children with endocrine disorders.
Alistair played a central role in developing therapeutic hypothermia for neonatal encephalopathy, from large animal studies to randomized controlled trials, and its translation to routine clinical care. This work established therapeutic hypothermia as the first treatment to significantly improve survival without any disability for babies after asphyxia at birth. This simple and effective treatment is now standard care in around the world, supported by The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence in the UK, and the American Academy of Pediatrics. He is working with many people here and around the world to develop strategies to further improve neuroprotection.