Hearing-impaired children in East Java will have better access to services thanks to a collaboration between the University of Western Australia (UWA) and Universitas Airlangga. They’re working on audiology education and research with a long-term goal of establishing a Master of Clinical Audiology—Indonesia’s first audiology education program.
Yearly Archives: 2016
Breeding mosquitoes to eliminate dengue.
In 2014, residents of Yogyakarta started growing and releasing mosquitoes. It’s counter-intuitive, but the mosquitoes carry Wolbachia bacteria, which reduces the risk of them spreading dengue fever.
Over a number of weeks, mosquitoes with Wolbachia breed with local mosquitoes and pass the bacteria on to their offspring until almost all mosquitoes in the area carry the disease-blocking microbes.
A universal flu vaccine
A broad-spectrum flu vaccine is being developed to give better immunity to seasonal influenza strains and increased protection against future influenza pandemics.
The technology was created by researchers at the Australian National University and the University of Adelaide, who set up Gamma Vaccines to commercialise their ideas.
In 2013, Gamma Vaccines signed a three-way development agreement with Bio Farma and SOHO Industri Pharmasi to develop, manufacture, trial, and distribute the vaccine in Indonesia and other Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) countries.
Health
These are just some of the areas in which Indonesian and Australian researchers are innovating for better health in our two nations.
Read on for more about these and other health innovations.
The impact of rotavirus
Before the rotavirus vaccine was introduced in Australia in 2007, rotavirus caused about 10,000 hospitalisations among children under five years of age each year.
Globally, rotavirus is the leading cause of diarrhoea-related hospitalisations and deaths among young children.
How we imagine the future
Dr Muireann Irish discovered which parts of our brain are essential to imagine the future, ranging from simple things like “I must remember my keys and my wallet” to imagining complex events such as “my next holiday”.
And she’s shown that people with dementia don’t just lose the ability to remember the past, they also lose the ability to envisage the future.
While working at Neuroscience Research Australia and the University of New South Wales, Muireann has demonstrated that patients with dementia are unable to imagine future events or to engage in future-oriented forms of memory, and she has revealed the key brain regions that support these complex functions.
Saving lives with better processes
How can a doctor in a small practice with only one or two GPs learn from the mistakes of doctors across the country?
In any small practice, there’s a risk that an error can be interpreted as a one-off event, as there is limited awareness that the same incident could be occurring in other practices.
From jet engines to personalised surgical tools
The Monash scientists who led the creation of the world’s first 3D-printed jet engine in 2015 are now improving the design and cost of manufacturing medical implants, surgical tools, aerospace components, and more.
They’ve been working with surgeons to design tools for specific operations, to replace ‘one-size-fits-all’ tools currently available.
Continue reading From jet engines to personalised surgical tools
More accurate readings of the heart
Almost everyone has had their blood pressure measured with an inflatable cuff around the arm. But as useful as this is, it can differ from the reading at the heart itself.
Twenty years ago Sydney scientists found a way to get that extra information. They created a model that gives the pressure at the main artery of the heart, using the wrist’s pressure pulse (the shape of the ‘waves’ that both travel along arteries when the heart pumps blood, and travel back to the heart as it fills with blood).
The model wasn’t applicable to children, since their limbs are still growing – so now they’re adapting it to fit.
Reinventing catalysts
Professor Thomas Maschmeyer is working to integrate new battery and solar cell technologies into the walls and roofs of new houses, and to transform the somewhat ‘black art’ of catalysis—the process that cracks crude oil into useful fuels, oils and chemicals at every refinery. He has already helped to create over 200 new jobs with four spin-out companies.