State Minister for Medical Research visits the Turner Institute
This week (Tuesday), the Victorian Minister for Innovation, Medical Research and the Digital Economy, the Hon Jaala Pulford visited the Turner Institute for Brain and Mental Health to meet its researchers and learn first hand about their groundbreaking work.
The visit was an opportunity to showcase the Turner Institute’s clinics where research findings are translated into clinical practice.
Minister Pulford was welcomed by the Dean of the Monash Faculty of Medicine, Nursing and Health Sciences, Professor Christina Mitchell, who congratulated the Victorian State Government on its recently launched Health and Medical Research Strategy: 2022-2032.
“There is tremendous alignment with our innovative technologies and discoveries to identify new ways to improve the health of all Victorians and beyond,” Professor Mitchell said.
The Turner Institute has many examples of this alignment with its community-based lifespan approach.
“At the Turner Institute, we are actively pursuing three core themes of Developing Well, Living Well, and Ageing Well to build resilient, healthy brains early in life, to develop tools to promote and maintain brain and mental health over time,” the Director of the Turner Institute”, Professor Kim Cornish said.
Minister Pulford met a number of senior researchers working in the fields of preventative brain and mental health as she toured the Turner facilities.
They included;
- Associate Professor Matt Pase who discussed links between sleep and dementia.
- Assoc. Professor Yen Ying Lim who spoke about the recently awarded ARC Industrial Transformation Training Centre for Optimal Ageing.
- Assoc. Professor Marie Yap on youth mental health and parenting programs.
The Minister was taken through a sleep research demonstration in the Sleep and Circadian Medicine Facility, which highlighted the extensive data that can be collected from these controlled environments. The multi-disciplinary program aims to investigate the contribution of sleep regulatory processes on waking function, health and safety.
Professor Cornish told Minister Pulford that the Turner has already made a significant impact since it was launched three years ago.
And, she said, the pioneering “Living Lab” due to start in 2023 will break new ground again, by creating a series of culturally diverse cohorts across the Developing, Living, and Ageing Well pillars, in the Southeast Corridor of Melbourne for longitudinal, community co-designed studies to foster brain and mental health.
“The idea behind this approach is to have a well-defined testbed and immediate access to the community where we can test co-designed initiatives prior to scale up and broader translation across Australia and internationally,” Professor Cornish said.
“Among other things, this important and timely project will help measure the pandemic’s impact on the mental health of a whole population.
“We want to pinpoint and treat potential problems early and, ideally, prevent them - whether they are COVID-related or not.,” Professor Cornish said.
The study will follow thousands of residents across all age groups over a 10-year period, monitoring and treating the signs of mental illness, dementia and other brain conditions.
“It’s a very, very exciting time to be at the Turner.”
For further information about the Turner Institute, see our website.
It was a wonderful opportunity to formally introduce Minister @JaalaPulford to the Turner Institute at our Sleep and Circadian Medicine facility on Tuesday this week alongside Distinguished Prof @cornish_kim, AP James Courtney, AP Matt Pase, AP @yenyinglim and AP @drmarieyap.
About Monash University
Monash University is Australia’s largest university with more than 80,000 students. In the 60 years since its foundation, it has developed a reputation for world-leading high-impact research, quality teaching, and inspiring innovation.
With four campuses in Australia and a presence in Malaysia, China, India, Indonesia and Italy, it is one of the most internationalised Australian universities.
As a leading international medical research university with the largest medical faculty in Australia and integration with leading Australian teaching hospitals, we consistently rank in the top 50 universities worldwide for clinical, pre-clinical and health sciences.
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