Delivering Impact October 2014
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DELIVERING IMPACT OCTOBER 2014 AustrAliA u ChinA u indiA u itAly u MAlAysiA u south AfriCA MALARIA UP CLOSE r tEsiliEn MEdiCinE RIEs V r And PoWEr IN ClusiVE sChools URBAn WAtEr Treatments that Bringing science Pacific countries Why developing work in hot, to disputes change views cities need a remote regions about resources on disability tailored approach DELIVERING IMPACT OCTOBER 2014 2 OctOber 2014 Monash university AUSTRALIA u CHINA u INDIA u ITALY u MALAYSIA u SOUTH AFRICA cOver Image: PrOfessOr brIan cOOke and steven mOrtOn MALARIA UP CLOSE RESILIENT MEDICINE RIVERS AND POWER INCLUSIVE SCHOOLS URBAN WATER Treatments that Bringing science Pacific countries Why developing work in hot, to disputes about change views cities need a remote regions resources on disability tailored approach Reaching out to a changing world In less than 60 years since its foundation, Monash University has grown to become Australia’s largest university and one of the country’s leading research institutions. It is also Australia’s most internationally focused university, with more than 20,000 international students, a campus in Malaysia, graduate and research academies in China and India, a study centre in Italy, and courses offered at Monash South Africa. We also have a path- pAgE 12 tHE CHALLEngE breaking educational and research partnership of sHARIng with the University of Warwick (UK). MAlARIA dEnGuE The depth and breadth of Monash University’s Global malaria Bacteria put the research provide us with great scope to address offensive bite on mozzies 04 24 the challenges that lie ahead for Australia and WORDS Dr Gio Braidotti WORDS Bianca Nogrady our wider region. Much commentary has been MEdiCinE infAnt hEAlth dedicated to the enormous economic opportunity Cool A patch 08 cubes 26 of life presented by the rise of Asia in the 21st century WORDS Bianca Nogrady WORDS Melissa Marino and to the ways in which Australia’s capacity to participate in, and contribute to, the growth and nEonAtAl CArE development of our region will be key drivers Science gives babies 30 time to breathe in the continued prosperity and growth of our WORDS Melissa Marino nation. Yet, in keeping with the vision of Sir John Monash, after whom the university was named, we recognise at Monash that with opportunity comes responsibility – our academic endeavour must be not only for our benefit, but for the benefit of the wider community. For us, the achievement of EnGinEErinG our academic ambitions should have far-reaching Blood lines and positive implications not only in Australia 09 spelled out but also in regions beyond, where the challenges WORDS Bianca Nogrady are often more stark and more intractable. MArkEtinG WoMEn’s hEAlth In a context of shrinking public-sector funding Clean Childbirth made safer worldwide for university research and increasing 10 business 31 in a single puff WORDS Brad Collis WORDS Melissa Marino riVEr MAnAGEMEnt EduCAtion The challenge Classrooms 12 of sharing 32 without borders WORDS Brad Collis WORDS Rebecca Jennings Monash – Delivering Impact urBAn WAtEr EPidEMioloGy Issue #8, OctOber 2014 PublIshed 3 tImes a year by mOnash unIversIty A modern Health on Building H, Level 9, 900 Dandenong Road, Caulfield East, VIC 3145, Australia 15 conundrum 34 the record crIcOs PrOvIder number: 00008C Issn 2200-386X (PrInt) Issn 2200-4459 (OnlIne) WORDS Catherine Norwood WORDS Catherine Norwood enquIrIes managIng edItOr: Stacey Mair assOcIate edItOr: Alice Russell telePhOne: +61 3 9903 4840 emaIl: [email protected] trAuMA carE esubscrIbe tO the mOnash magazIne: www.monash.edu/monashmag/subscribe Road trauma drives 18 Snapshots WebsIte: www.monash.edu/monashmag 20 hospital reform WrItten and desIgned by: Coretext, www.coretext.com.au the InfOrmatIOn In thIs PublIcatIOn Was cOrrect at the tIme Of gOIng tO Press. vIeWs WORDS Melissa Marino 35 In print exPressed WIthIn the magazIne are nOt necessarIly the vIeWs Of mOnash unIversIty. © cOPyrIght mOnash unIversIty. all rIghts reserved. Monash university OctOber 2014 3 Inclusive innovation through affordable excellence focus on the importance of The phrase “affordable excellence” looks research translation, we need to self-contradictory. What is affordable cannot be more outward-focused, more be excellent. What is excellent cannot be responsive to global challenges, affordable. But in recent times, we have seen this impossible-looking feat becoming possible. and more responsible for Let me begin my explanation of this concept broader economic prosperity and with a personal experience. In my mother’s wellbeing. Internationalisation, name, I have created the Anjani Mashelkar interdisciplinary research and Inclusive Innovation Award. It is given for research translation are the keys designing and developing a technological to fulfilling Monash University’s solution that leads to inclusion – meaning Dr R. A. Mashelkar mission to deliver impact through that millions of resource-poor people can excellence. It is essential that benefit from it. But there are two conditions. First, it must belong to the category of Making high we transcend the boundaries of affordable excellence. Second, it must be not technology work disciplines, institutions and nations just “best” practice, but “next” practice. in order to bring the best minds One of these awards was given to for the rich is to bear on complex problems, 28-year-old innovator Myshkin Ingawale. easy. Making low so that new-generation solutions, He found that women in villages were dying technology work such as those we proudly feature of anaemia because their low haemoglobin for the poor is easy. in this issue, can be found in areas levels were not detected in time. He found out why: many of them were reluctant to give But making high such as affordable diagnostics their blood. So he decided to create a non- and medical treatments, health technology work invasive diagnostic tool, something never before for the poor is systems and urban infrastructure, achieved. He used photoplethysmography, education and sustainable spectrophotometry and advanced software challenging. resource management. for photon spectrometry to create TouchHb. This was technological excellence. professor Edwina Cornish Furthermore, he reduced the cost per test inequality that is creating social disharmony. PROVOST AND SENIOR VICE-PRESIDENT from US$2 to 20 cents. This was affordable. The multinational companies are going for it, MONASH UNIVERSITY Making high technology work for the rich is since they see that the next billion-dollar market easy. Making low technology work for the poor will service customers who have an aspiration is easy. But making high technology work for of buying “excellence” that is “affordable”. the poor, as the above example illustrates, is When gE Healthcare created a portable ECg challenging. And that is precisely what machine that could be priced at Us$600, rather Professor George Whitesides from than the conventional machine that was priced Harvard University demonstrated with his at Us$10,000, it found markets in the Us and paper-based diagnostic. It can do a liver Europe. My recent work with the European Union test for a mere two cents, yet another and the organisation for Economic Co-operation example of affordable excellence. and Development has taught me that even there, This concept was first illustrated in a the emphasis is shifting to quality, sustainability paper the late, legendary C.K. Prahalad and and affordability, not just the first two. I wrote in Harvard Business Review. It was Finally, let us remember that titled “Innovation’s Holy Grail” and proposed “affordable” brings equity and “excellence” the concept of getting more from less for more brings competitiveness. And “affordable people, rather than just for more profit. only excellence” has the power to put smiles six months after the paper’s publication in on the faces of all seven billion people July 2010, the World Economic forum held a in the world, not just a few of them. special session on “More from less for more”. This concept is now spreading around Dr R. A. Mashelkar, fRs the world. The emerging economies are going NATIONAL RESEARCH PROFESSOR & PRESIDENT, for it, since they see the prospect of creating GLOBAL RESEARCH ALLIANCE, professor Edwina Cornish access equality despite the rising income NATIONAL CHEMICAL LABORATORY, PUNE, INDIA MAlAriA 4 OctOber 2014 Monash university GLOBAL MALARIA OFFENSIVE A renewed scientific campaign against this devastating disease is offering humanity new hope. Every minute, a child dies from malaria. In 2012, 90% of the world’s malaria deaths occurred in Africa and about 460,000 African children died before their fifth birthdays. sOurce: WOrld health OrganIzatIOn PhOtO: 123rf.cOm MAlAriA Monash university OctOber 2014 5 I mage: Pr WORDS Dr Gio Braidotti achieving an MMV “holy grail” – a drug that can be administered as a single-dose treatment that will cost less O t here are parasites – smaller than human than one US dollar. It is now in advanced clinical trials. fess cells – that have an unquenchable appetite for then comes DSM265, which is in early clinical O r human haemoglobin, the bright-red, life-giving trials. this new drug introduces an entirely new b r I molecule that carries oxygen in our blood. and targeted way to attack the parasite. an transmitted by mosquito bites, these microbial parasites another drug candidate, MMV390048, the first cOO cause malaria, which annually afflicts millions of people developed in africa, will soon enter clinical trials and a further ke and through debilitating fever. every year, the disease kills about two drug candidates are in pre-clinical development. s a million people – mostly children and mostly in africa. all of these compounds have at one point in their teven m despite malaria’s grim status as one of the planet’s development passed through Professor charman’s most devastating diseases, infection rates declined by laboratory and, in the process, earned her five MMV O 25 per cent between 2000 and 2012.