Message from the Head of School
Message from the Head of School
Dear Colleagues,
It seems like only yesterday that I was writing a Christmas message for this website and now we are over half way through the first semester! Much has happened in that time including the ongoing success of our staff and students who are highlighted in this issue of the School of Medical Sciences Newsletter.
On 4 April the first Phase of IRiS went live and we welcomed the foundation members of our new school-based research team – Katie Jones, Johanna Lundberg and Bianca Brown, with more members to be appointed in the coming weeks. While we are already seeing benefits from the embedding of research support into the Group Services operations of the school, the full benefits of these changes will not be realised until we have a complete complement of staff, and the new University-wide systems are fully embedded. So please be patient, because I believe we have an opportunity to dramatically improve our research support; it will just take some time to implement correctly.
The curriculum re-design of our MEDSCI courses initiated as part of the BSc restructure will continue throughout 2018 and will dovetail nicely with our response to the areas of action raised by the panel that reviewed the performance of the school in 2017. Professor Michelle Glass has, as the School’s academic director, played a key role in leading this curriculum redesign. Michelle’s decision to move to the University of Otago will therefore leave a big hole in our academic leadership team. While Michelle will be sorely missed, we wish her well in her new role. Before Michelle leaves in July we will be organising a school forum to update the school on the curriculum changes and the implementation plan submitted to address the areas of action raised in the review report, which will also serve as a school farewell function for Michelle.
Until then, good luck with those who have are awaiting the outcomes of their Health Research Council grants applications and Marsden grant expressions of interest, while we mark terms tests and submit final exam questions.
Cheers,
Paul
High impact papers and journal
Congratulations for your contribution to the high impact papers and journal.
Staff success
Below is the list of the 2022 HRC Programme Grants, and Project Grants awarded to the School of Medical Sciences staff.
Staff success
Anuj Bhargava and Angela Tsai, in collaboration with the ADInstruments team, was one of 34 final projects advanced to the final round of competition and received an honourable mention in the Blended Learning Optimization category.
Postgraduate success
Congratulations to Denver Britto, who successfully defended his PhD thesis.
Postgraduate success
Edward Ferdian name has been placed on the Dean of Graduate Studies List in recognition of the excellence achieved with his PhD thesis.
Staff success
Congratulations Laura on your election to the Executive/Council of the IUPS for the term 2022-2025.
Grant success
Maggie Kalev-Zylinska, leader of the Blood and Cancer Biology Laboratory in the Department of Molecular Medicine and Pathology, gained $240,000 in funding from the Heart Research Institute (HRI).
High impact paper
James Hearn, Taryn Green, Colin Hisey, Nicholas Knowlton, Raewyn Poulsen, Stefan Bohlander and Maggie Kalev-Zylinska published a paper entitled ‘Deletion of Grin1 in mouse megakaryocytes reveals NMDA receptor role in platelet function and proplatelet formation’.
Fellowship of the academy of the International Union of Physiological Sciences
Professor Laura Bennet has been elected as a fellow of the academy of the International Union of Physiological Sciences (IUPS).