Translating medical research

On the University’s 160th anniversary Emeritus Professor Sir Gustav Nossal discusses his vision for a better future through advances in global health by research translation, a passion shared by the Melbourne University Health Initiative (MUHI) in its commitment to elevating health standards to their highest potential in developing countries.

At ‘Translating Medical Research’ an event hosted by MUHI at the University last month, Sir Gustav discussed his lifelong commitment to translating medical research and praised the efforts of students committed to tackling health inequalities in developing countries. 

“I think Generation Y is just marvellous. These are idealistic young people who want to make the world a better place and they’re seeking ways in which their efforts can be devoted to problems in developing countries – not just in health but also in education, housing and other possibilities.”

Sir Gustav cites the student-run Melbourne University Health Initiative as a key example of a charity interested in both local and international health issues with a vision to make a constructive difference.

“MUHI was started entirely and completely by students, that’s the nice part about it. It seemed to me they were determined to make a difference – for example, to continue to put pressure on governments to live up to their promises on foreign aid, which is always under threat,” he says. 

MUHI aims to elevate health standards by educating communities in developing countries to take proactive steps towards better healthcare and the prevention of communicable diseases including pneumonia, diarrhoea, HIV Aids, tuberculosis and malaria. 

Central to these efforts is medical research translation, essentially applying medical research from bench to bedside, something Sir Gustav has devoted his life’s work to, and which he discussed at the lecture.

Sir Gustav says despite Australia having built its very fine international reputation in medical science largely on the basic science end, there is pressure coming from government and the medical profession generally to go down the path of more applied research and the development of clinical trials.

Supporting the efforts of translating medical research into practical application, MUHI acts on a grassroots level in developing countries to increase the standard of healthcare received and is an example of Generation Y’s efforts to address health inequities.

MUHI President Kristijan Jovanoski believes University of Melbourne students are passionate about a range of issues that affect us on a global and local scale. In addition to global health, MUHI is committed to a broad range of issues including mental health, Indigenous health and asylum-seeker and refugee health.

“There’s a massive interest (from students) in finding out how they can get involved, how they can make a difference and how they can get in touch with these issues and really understand them,” Mr Jovanoski says.

An example of the initiative’s altruistic values is the Kenya Village Medical Education project (KVME). The project is a preventative medicine campaign in rural Kenya, which aims to improve health outcomes through culturally-specific health promotion. 

In rural Kenya, there is a lack of information and understanding about easily preventable diseases that cause high rates of morbidity. Volunteers conduct training programs to educate rural communities about how to mitigate the effects of commonly fatal but easily preventable diseases.

The KVME project highlights MUHI’s main task of giving back through education. Mr Jovanoski says University of Melbourne students who give their time to these projects also gain valuable perspectives from the Kenyan community. 

“Just by going the volunteers immerse themselves in a new culture and get to meet people with an entirely different perspective on life. When you see what they have to do just to get through the day without getting sick, it’s quite incredible,” he says.

As the younger generations of students continue the efforts to address health inequalities, Sir Gustav says the single biggest barrier is persuading the big companies best equipped to do development work on the benefits of the ‘low price high volume’ trade off when distributing vaccines in developing countries.

 “We have many wonderful new vaccines which are slowly being rolled out in third world countries,” he says, “but the role they play in prevention of diseases must be further emphasised and better communicated,” he says.

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