Student profiles

Find out about some of the Department of Paediatrics student experiences and pathways from their profiles below.

Sara di SimoneKirsten FurleyElys GreenOkkes PatogluAbdul Razak | Samuel Robinson | Lindsay Zhou

Sara di Simone

Sara di Simone

Project: Culturing the Respiratory Bacteria Isolated from Intubated Neonates

Supervisors: Prof Marcel Nold, Dr Samuel Forster, A/Prof Claudia Nold and Dr Jane Bourke.

Experience in the Department: In 2020 my honours project was centred around the ‘GLAM & I’ clinical study. ‘GLAM & I’ aims to investigate what microbes colonise the gut and lung and examine the interplay between our microbiome and immune system. During my honour’s year, ‘GLAM & I’ was in its pilot phase and my project aimed to optimise the culturing conditions required to grow the respiratory bacteria. During my honour’s year, I was blessed with to have the opportunity to obtain precious samples from neonatal ICU at Monash Children’s Hospital.

Where am I now? I was so excited and motivated by my project during honours that I chose to continue this project and complete my PhD in 2021. Taking the ‘GLAM & I’ study to full scale, my project longitudinally obtains time-matched respiratory, gut, breastmilk and blood samples from neonatal and paediatric ICU patients to investigate host microbe interactions between the lung and gut microbiomes and the immune system. My hope for my project is to unlock microbiome-based medicines to target and treat disease in these young patients.

Kirsten Furley

Kirsten Furley

Translational PhD Project: Understanding Skills Loss in Children

Supervisors: Prof Katrina Williams, Prof Michael Fahey, Dr Amanda Brignell

Experience in the Department: I am a Paediatrician at MCH, working in Developmental Paediatrics in the Turner clinic and am part of the Complex Autism Neurodevelopmental Team led by Prof Katrina Williams. My PhD program aims to improve care for children with skills loss, also referred to as developmental regression, and their families through earlier recognition, greater understanding of the variable presentations and conditions that can feature developmental regression, and evidence informed recommendations for investigations. The first project aims to reach a consensus in how to define and measure developmental regression. An agreement will set the stage for greater research collaboration and improve clinical consistency in care.  Best practice investigations will be assessed through a systematic review of the diagnostic yield of investigations, followed by a delphi procedure to seek expert opinion. This work will inform future guideline development. Two cohort studies will deeply phenotype children with developmental regression, the first a study of autistic children uses a breadth of measures including quality of life and stress for caregivers, and includes analysis of home videos of children's development; the second is a genetic cohort study that reports the clinical and genetic diagnosis of children presenting with developmental regression that will highlight the increasing use of genomics, and resulting new or rarely reported genetic conditions that feature developmental regression.

Elys Green

Elys Green

Translational PhD Project: Is giving Anakinra to preterm infants safe?

Supervisors: Prof Marcel Nold, Prof Rod Hunt, Dr Rob Galinsky, Dr Steven Cho

Experience in the Department: I am a clinical neonatal fellow at Monash Newborn, undertaking a translational PhD project with the Department of Paediatrics and the Nold lab group at the Ritchie Centre: conducting a phase I/II safety trial for the use of anakinra in preterm infants to reduce the risks for the complications of prematurity.  Over 1000 infants in Australia are born extremely premature each year, which has associated risks for long-term complications including chronic lung disease and cerebral palsy, which have a common underlying pathophysiology of inflammation. My PhD project is focused on investigating the use of anakinra, an IL-1Ra analogue, as a treatment to reduce inflammation in the first weeks of life in infants born extremely premature. This builds on previous pre-clinical evidence produced by the Nold and Galinsky labs, as well as conducting a pharmakokinetic analysis for anakinra in infants born extremely premature.

Okkes Patoglu

Okkes Patoglu

Project: Understanding cardiorespiratory control in children with Prader-Willi syndrome

Supervisors: Prof Rosemary Horne, A/Prof Gillian Nixon and A/Prof Brad Edwards

Experience in the Department: My PhD research is focussed on investigating the control of breathing and heart rate during sleep in children with Prader-Willi syndrome (PWS). This is particularly crucial for children PWS, who exhibit an increased susceptibility to sleep-related breathing disorders and cardiovascular complications. Impaired cardiorespiratory control can have profound and long-lasting effects which extends into adulthood. Dysfunction in the hypothalamic-pituitary axis in these children results in significantly reduced growth hormone (GH) secretion in some cases. As GH plays a pivotal role, especially during childhood, GH therapy is commonly administered as part of their treatment regimen. However, GH therapy has been associated with the development of breathing disorders, while also exhibiting potential benefits in improving arterial oxygenation during sleep. The existing literature on cardiorespiratory control in children with PWS remains limited. As such, improving our understanding of the underlying mechanisms contributing to sleep-related breathing disorders and cardiorespiratory control has the potential to enhance their quality of life and enable more effective detection and management of these consequential conditions.

Abdul Razak

Abdul Razak

Project: Investigating cord blood cell therapies for perinatal brain injury

Supervisors: A/Prof Atul MalhotraProf Suzie Miller, Dr Courtney McDonald, Prof Rod Hunt

Experience in the Department: I am an accomplished neonatologist and have received basic medical training from Rajiv Gandhi University of Health Sciences, India, and neonatal training from McMaster University, Canada. I have dedicated my career to enhancing respiratory and neurological outcomes in infants. I am currently exploring the role of cell therapies in improving outcomes of newborn infants with perinatal brain injury. Particularly, I am looking at the safety and feasibility of allogeneic cord blood-derived cell therapy in preterm infants with severe brain injury (ALLO Trial) and the safety and feasibility of autologous umbilical cord-derived cell administration following antenatally diagnosed fetal stroke (STELLAR trial). In addition, I am also exploring the neuroprotective effects of expanded umbilical cord blood cells in a fetal sheep model of preterm brain injury. So far, I have been fortunate to contribute significantly to the scientific community with an impressive publication record, including 69 papers and 9 book chapters. Further, with an excellent supervisor team, I continue to strive harder and aim to make a lasting impact on the field of neonatology and contribute to the betterment of neonatal care worldwide.

Samuel Robinson

Samuel Robinson

Project: Simulation-based education for healthcare workers in the Pacific Islands

Supervisors: A/Prof Ram Nataraja, Prof Debra Nestel, Dr Elizabeth McLeod

Experience in the Department: I completed my BMedSc(Hons) in the Department of Paediatrics and made the decision to move into the MD-PhD pathway. The supportive environment provided by my supervisors and the Department was a significant factor which contributed to me making this choice.

I am investigating the use of simulation-based education in the Pacific Islands. Simulation-based education is an educational technique which involves replicating a clinical setting to train skills in a controlled environment, prior to patient contact. The research I conducted in my Honours degree highlighted that clinicians in the Pacific Islands have limited access to this form of education, despite significant interest. My research focuses on how simulation-based education can be used to improve clinician competency and patient safety in this setting.

With my PhD, I hope to contribute to a better understanding of how medical education can build capacity and competency of health systems in low-resource settings, knowledge which could then be applied in various settings to improve health outcomes to patients.

Lindsay Zhou

Lindsay Zhou

Project: Investigating umbilical cord blood derived stem cells for therapeutic use in preterm brain injury.

Supervisors: Prof Suzie Miller, A/Prof Atul Malhotra, Dr Courtney McDonald, Dr Tamara Yawno

Experience in the Department: I am a neonatologist at Monash Newborn, undertaking a translational PhD project with the Department of Paediatrics and the Miller-Allison lab group at the Ritchie Centre: investigating umbilical cord blood-derived cell therapy for preterm brain injury.

Every year in Australia more than 1000 infants are born extremely prematurely; this comes with risks such intraventricular haemorrhage and inflammatory brain injury, leading to long term developmental disabilities such as cerebral palsy. There are no known treatments or cures for these conditions. As such, my PhD project is focusing on investigating the use of umbilical cord blood-derived stem cells as a treatment for preterm babies at risk of brain injury, building upon previous pre-clinical evidence produced by the Miller-Allison group in animal models.

My PhD project has clinical and laboratory components. The clinical study is a phase 1 trial of autologous cord blood-derived stem cell administration in extremely preterm infants, and is actively recruiting. The lab components of his project are investigating the characteristics of extremely preterm cord blood cells, expansion of these cells, and the neuroprotective effects of expanded cord blood stem cells on a fetal sheep model of preterm brain injury.