A Good Night's Sleep Research

SYDNEY ALUMNI MAGAZINE 2016 EDITION SYDNEY’S CAMPUS IN ANCIENT LATIN AND A RABBI WHO’S GREAT INVESTMENT DECISIONS TRANSFORMATION GREEK, ALIVE AND WELL AROUND THE KITCHEN GONE WRONG A good night’s sleep research CONTENTS Inside Australia’s leading The biggest ever gift, set to Designs for making the University sleep research facility 3 transform health education 6 more accessible 12 Chancellor’s welcome Introduction 2 Awake to possibilities Research 3 A new future for health education Philanthropy 6 The money or the box Research 8 An open kitchen Alumni community 10 Design of the times Campus 12 Making a dog’s life longer Research 14 Grounds for change Campus 16 Classics never date Culture 18 TELL US WHAT YOU THINK SAM Heritage celebrates the fact that alumni speak their minds. We would love to hear your feedback about this publication and your ideas for future editions via [email protected] Published by Managing editor: Printing managed Cover photography: Inside front cover: Inside back cover: The University Kate May by Publish Partners Dr Maria Comas Soberats The Anderson Stuart The Anderson Stuart of Sydney, Publishing editor: is a molecular Building under Building in 2016, Level 7, JFR George Dodd 16/5700 chronobiologist construction in is the home to Building, NSW 2006 ©2016 The University working with the 1883. Supplied the Discipline 02 9036 6372 Produced by of Sydney Sleep and Circadian by the University of Anatomy and [email protected] Marketing and Research Group. Photo of Sydney Archives. Histology. Photo Communications, by Louise Cooper. Ref G3_224_0373 by Irenaeus Herok ISSN: 2205-4669 the University of Sydney INTRODUCTION RESEARCH CHANCELLOR’S WELCOME AWAKE TO Thank you for your positive responses to the importance of nurses through providing POSSIBILITIES the first SAM Heritage, published just over 12 annual scholarships. This time, the Wakils a year ago. I am delighted to welcome you have donated funds for the construction of a to our second issue. It has been a very full centre that will deliver enhanced teaching, Sleep aids concentration, good health, memory and possibly year, during which we have launched the learning and research capabilities across all even maintaining your weight. So the Sleep and Circadian Australian Institute for Nanoscale Science the health disciplines. and Technology; commenced implementation Our health is all important. Those who Research Group studies how more people can sleep the of our 2016–20 Strategic Plan; and completed research and battle disease and who treat and night away, writes George Dodd. several noteworthy building projects around care for us are vital to our community. The the University including the new world class University of Sydney’s new Susan Wakil Health Business School and Queen Mary student Building will encourage multidisciplinary, accommodation. These are just a few of interfaculty learning, collaboration, and the Sleep. We all do it. We don’t all do it well. And insomnia was old-style sleeping tablets with the University’s myriad achievements. cross-fertilisation of ideas. Staff and students according to Professor Ron Grunstein (MD ’95 what the experts term their ‘dirty effects’ of We recently announced plans for another will benefit immensely – and so, ultimately, will MBBS ’80), some of us keep ourselves awake grogginess and memory loss. “The new sleeping transformative facility, enabled by an incredible our entire community. Working together, we worrying about it. tablets are much more targeted and less gift from Susan and Isaac Wakil. They are the will make a real and enduring difference. “Telling people they must get eight hours’ dirty,” says Professor Grunstein. “They have same generous couple who last year recognised I hope you enjoy this issue of SAM Heritage. sleep creates insomnia,” he says with a smile. their place, but now it’s more about changing How much sleep to get is the question Professor behaviours that affect sleep.” Grunstein is asked more than any other. Physiologically speaking, sleep is a team “It varies,” he says. “Most people sleep from effort, with agents such as melatonin, cortisol six-and-a-half to eight hours a day. You wouldn’t and orexin lowering us into sleep or lifting us call lack of sleep ‘insomnia’ unless it really into wakefulness. It’s an arrangement that affects how you work and live. That happens can easily go awry from factors such as stress, to about 10 per cent of the population.” illness, alcohol, caffeine, medication or the blue- Belinda Hutchinson AM, There was a time when the treatment for light stimulation of device screens before bed. Chancellor BEc Sydney, FCA 2 3 t Topographical brain maps showing the big differences in brain wave activity during wakefulness (above) and sleep (below). Insomnia is the dedicated to most common sleep understanding disturbance, but it’s and treating sleep not the only reason disorders, with people come for researchers drawn from overnight stays at the diagnosis and molecular Woolcock Institute of biology through to Medical Research, which is drug development, affiliated with the University disease management and p Dr Maria Comas Soberats says the body clock can be p Professor Ron Grunstein is a world authority of Sydney and where Professor sleep education. Walking into harnessed to make some cancer treatments more effective. on sleep and sleep disorders. Grunstein heads the Sleep and reception, it feels like a pleasant, Circadian Research Group. mid-ranking city hotel, but the “A population that sleeps Woolcock offers a lot more than well is more productive, uses a bed for the night. fewer health resources and “We have an area where has fewer workplace and we can isolate some of our road accidents,” says patients from time,” Professor Grunstein, Professor Grunstein standing in the patient says. “This lets us accommodation area. observe their actual physiology and metabolism, such as eating patterns. she explains. “A red blood cell doesn’t even have a “These are things that sleep patterns by “The richest results come when sleep disturbance nucleus, but it does have a clock. The clock activates can save lives and save removing the cues that and body clock studies inform each other,” Professor and represses functions within that cell. the nation billions of tell them what time of Grunstein says. Which is why he jumped at the chance “So if a cancer drug is designed to be taken up by dollars.” day it is.” to bring Dr Maria Comas Soberats onto the team. a particular receptor in a cell, it will be much more During the day, This includes Recently arrived from Sweden, Dr Comas is a effective if you can administer it when you know the the 12-bed sleep floors built on springs postdoctoral fellow and molecular chronobiologist cell clock has made that receptor active.” accommodation to absorb vibration who has worked with world authorities in the body- This implies using a different mindset in some feels strangely from morning garbage clock field. She is also an awarded researcher. “I am cancer treatments so the body clock is considered when vacant, but at night it’s trucks; food is continuously passionate about my work,” she says. “There is so much designing therapies. What’s always needed is more buzzing with clinicians available so there’s no sense to learn. For example, people with schizophrenia or information, and Dr Comas is excited about what will and the sleep disturbed: of breakfast, lunch and dinner; other severe mental illnesses have chaotic body clocks. be uncovered in this area. men, women and even children light from any time of day can be Understanding more about their clock function could “Professor Grunstein is helping me make with conditions such as narcolepsy, mimicked in the rooms, and there’s no lead to better treatments.” connections here at the University with researchers circadian rhythm disturbances, and the second internet or television. Male technicians even There is even the promise that cancer clinicians in other fields. They really want to be involved,” most common sleep disorder, sleep apnoea. have to make sure they shave at random times. could use Dr Comas’s insights to make existing she says. “I’ve worked where people talk about The Woolcock’s sleep research unit is The body clock, also called the circadian clock, is treatments more effective. collaboration but it doesn’t happen. Here it does. Australia’s only multidisciplinary sleep centre involved in more than sleep. It also affects behaviour, “Every cell in a person’s body has its own clock,” It makes so much more possible.” 4 5 PHILANTHROPY Imagine a teaching environment postgraduate nursing students with MHlthSc(Sports&ManipPhty) that integrates all the health study, tuition and accommodation. Hons ’75). “Our future services The Wakil gift is the largest ever given to the University of disciplines – nursing, medicine, Together, these gifts provide will be well-linked with access Sydney in its 166-year history. It will mean a revolution in allied health, dentistry and a singular opportunity for the to multidisciplinary teams, the pharmacy – so the education on University to drive excellence in infrastructure will match the needs health education and research, writes Anna Herbert. offer is underpinned by the latest clinical services and holistic care of the community and people will multidisciplinary research. wherever its health graduates go have control of their own health.” The farsighted vision of Susan to work. The building is just the and Isaac Wakil is bringing “We were inspired by the beginning. It will be the catalyst this concept to life, with the radical and innovative approach for new ways of thinking, aim of transforming healthcare the University of Sydney is taking collaborating and teaching. The education in Australia.

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