OptiBlood – optimising the patient’s blood reserve and blood use

Theme Leader: Associate Professor Lin Fung
Tel: +61 7 5156 5178
Email: ylfung@usc.edu.au

Blood is vital to life. To protect this vital resource, the OptiBlood team (www.optiblood.com.au) of researchers from a wide range of clinical backgrounds is focussed on projects to optimise the

• Patient’s own blood reserve through effective patient blood management.
• Use of the valuable and limited resource of human blood products, particularly in older patients who are the largest blood user age group.
• Quality of blood products to minimize the risk of adverse events.

To facilitate the prompt translation of research findings into clinical practice we have productive collaborations with collagues at The Prince Charles Hospital, Sunshine Coast University Hospital, LifeBlood and various blood collection services in Asia Pacific.

This team specialises in mentoring part-time higher degree by research (HDR) candidates. By designing projects that complement the candidate’s professional role and interest, health and health-related professionals can continue working and successfully pursue a HDR on a part-time basis. We welcome HDR inquires and new collaborations.

Obesity and diabetes research

Theme Leader: Dr Mark Hayes, Adjunct Fellow – Obesity and Diabetes Group
Tel: +61 7 5456 3466 
Email: mhayes2@usc.edu.au

Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus (T2DM) has reached epidemic proportions with the world incidence projected to rise from 382 million in 2013 to 592 million in 2035. Burgeoning rates of obesity and a more sedentary lifestyle have combined to produce an epidemic of Type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) which has the capacity to severely strain or overwhelm the health care system over the next decade. The incidence of T2DM increased by 10% between 2013 and 2015 on the Sunshine Coast and the cost to the health care system may rise 5 fold over the next three decades. The number of people with undiagnosed diabetes, prediabetes or diabetes risk could be 3 times the number who have been currently diagnosed. Urgent action is required to prevent the progression of diabetes in individuals in our community. This needs to be based on a multi-disciplinary approach which combines early identification of those at risk of disease, a wellness program to minimize lifestyle factors which contribute to progression, contributions from the specialties which treat the major co-morbidities, nursing and GP education and involvement in treatment and outreach and basic research into the root causes of the disease which are currently poorly understood.

I have a number of potential projects particularly involving liver genes which may contribute to the dysregulation of liver glycemic homeostasis or act as early biomarkers for risk of the development of metabolic syndrome, Type 2 Diabetes and heart disease. If you are interested in these areas contact Dr Mark Hayes on Tel: +61 7 5456 3466 or Email: mhayes2@usc.edu.au.