Media Release
August 10 2010
Bouquets for young researchers: UniSA's Tall Poppies
Three
bright young researchers from UniSA
have been honoured as Tall Poppies at the South Australian Young Tall
Poppy Science Awards.
Sleep researcher
Dr Siobhan Banks, 34, biochemistry expert
Dr Ellen Nisbet, 31, and allied health researcher
Dr Saravana Kumar, 33, were recognised for their research
achievements at the 8th Tall Poppy Awards held at the Observatory
Function Centre at Hackney.
The awards recognise outstanding researchers in the early stages of
their careers who are already making discoveries and who are passionate
about communicating their work.
Dr Banks, a research fellow with the
Centre for Sleep Research,
is passionate about the relatively young field of sleep research and in
particular the consequences of sleep debt.
“Our society is chronically sleep deprived due to lifestyle, 24-hour
operations and long work hours. Between 18 to 40 per cent of Australian
adults report regularly sleeping less than seven hours a night,” Dr
Banks says.
“My research relates to questions about how much sleep we need to
maintain healthy functioning, how metabolism might be disrupted by sleep
loss to potentially cause obesity, and what are the best work/rest
schedules to improve safety and reduce the risk of accidents.”
Dr Nisbet from the
Sansom Institute for Health Research is researching new
anti-malarial drugs.
“Each year just over one million people die of malaria – and almost all
are children under the age of five,” she says.
“Malaria is caused by a parasite known as Plasmodium. Although
there are many anti-malarial drugs, the parasites have developed
resistance to all of them and we urgently need a new type of
anti-malarial drug.”
Dr Nisbet is researching the evolution of a group of algae known as
dinoflagellates, which are closely related to Plasmodium, in a
bid to discover new proteins that will become potential new drug
targets.
Dr Kumar is a senior research fellow with the
International Centre for Allied
Health Evidence. His research centres around evidence-based health
care and he says many popular health practices are not based on research
evidence.
“This can lead to poor quality, unsafe, costly and harmful health care
practices,” he says.
“Common evidence/practice gaps include antibiotic prescription for the
common flu, soft collars for whiplash and x-rays for lower back pain.
For example, evidence shows that wearing soft collars is actually
harmful and it is staying active which promotes recovery in whiplash.
Yet, clinicians’ practice and behaviour does not match this evidence.”
Dr Kumar’s research aims to address common evidence/practice gaps, which
will ultimately result in improved safety and quality of Australian
health care.
UniSA Vice Chancellor
Professor Peter Høj was at this morning’s breakfast to congratulate
UniSA’s latest Tall Poppy awardees.
“I am delighted that these enthusiastic young researchers have been
acknowledged in these prestigious awards,” Prof Høj says.
“The university congratulates Ellen, Siobhan and Saravana and celebrates
this great honour with them.”
Media contact
- Kelly Stone office (08) 8302 0963 mobile 0417 861 832 email kelly.stone@unisa.edu.au