PhD Scholarships

The purpose of this study is to examine how older people with cancer and their families living in rural communities are affected by the burden of treatment. The objective is to identify how to enhance their capacity to manage this treatment through appropriate use of resources, including their local networks.

PhD Supervisor: Professor Vicki Parker
Health Practitioner/ Policy Supervisor: Roslyn Everingham, Hunter New England Local Health District
Priority Area: Health systems research

This PhD aims to identify the most clinically useful method for measuring the QT interval on a patient’s ECG which will ensure that an appropriate tool is used to assess QT prolongation in patients using psychiatric medication.

PhD Supervisor: Professor Jennifer Martin
Health Practitioner/ Policy Supervisor: Roslyn Everingham, Hunter New England Local Health District
Priority Area: Epidemiology & Implementation science

The aim of the PhD research project will be to identify biomarkers of Anxious Depression, with a specific focus on biomarkers related to treatment prediction.Identifying biomarkers of Anxious Depression has the potential to enhance our understanding of its biological underpinnings, resulting in more accurate predictions of risk, prognosis, and treatment response.

PhD Supervisor: Associate Professor Anthony Harris and Dr Donna Palmer
Priority Area: Implementation science

This research will utilise a new and sophisticated health records data linkage platform, the Illawarra Health Information Platform, to investigate patterns of dementia identification during hospital admissions over a 10-year period, and to establish any relationships between dementia identification and patient outcomes. This will be accomplished through retrospective, longitudinal analysis of admissions for people with dementia and a matched cohort. Emergency department and inpatient data sets from the Illawarra Shoalhaven Local Health District, linked with mortality data, will be utilised.

PhD Supervisor: Dr Lyn Phillipson, Dr Luise Lago and Professor Kathy Eagar
Health Practitioner/ Policy Supervisor: Dr Jan Potter
Priority Area: Epidemiology

This project seeks to understand parent’s immunisation experiences with the NSW and Australian health systems.This project will identify the key areas in the NSW and Australian health systems that can be improved. Recommendations will be made that are based on the results of feedback from clinicians, policy makers and immunisation advocates, with the aim of preventing children from acquiring the flu and whooping cough.

PhD Supervisor: Associate Professor Kristine Macartney and Associate Professor Julie Leask
Priority Area: Health systems research

This study is based on the findings of completed research about HPV vaccination in 40 Australian secondary schools (HPV.edu) funded by the National Health and Medical Research Council. This study will work collaboratively with key stakeholders to implement evidence-based research findings into policy and practice within relevant health and education settings, and measure the effectiveness of these changes. Key outcomes include enhancing the communication of research findings and identifying best practices for implementation.

PhD Supervisor: Professor Rachel Skinner and Associate Professor Melissa Kang
Health Practitioner/ Policy Supervisor: Associate Professor Kristine Macartney
Priority Area: Implementation science

The aim of this research project is to develop an effective tool and method to gather patient feedback to train future doctors to be more ‘patient-centered’. To develop the tool, several groups of people will be consulted including patients, doctors in training, and doctors who are supervisors. The tool will then be tested with junior doctors and actors in a simulated environment. Following this, the tool will be piloted and tested in a hospital.

PhD Supervisor: Professor Wendy Hu
Health Practitioner/ Policy Supervisor: Professor Kevin Pile
Priority Area: Implementation science

This study aims to establish a clear understanding of the progression of behavioural symptoms in patients with Motor Neurone Disease, Corticobasal Degeneration & Progressive Supranuclear Palsy. These groups will be compared to a cohort of patients with behavioural variant Frontotemporal Dementia where behavioural changes are well established.The project will examine how these behaviours match with structural changes in the brain, using neuroimaging techniques like magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). This will help identify similarities and differences between the neurodegenerative diseases, allowing researchers to better distinguish between them.

PhD Supervisor: Professor Matthew Kiernan
Priority Area: Epidemiology

Lung cancer is one of the most common and lethal malignancies globally. About 3-7 per cent of patients with non-small cell lung cancer have a rearrangement in a gene called EML4-ALK (the ALK gene).New drugs that target this genetic alteration in ALK have been developed that can be effective in shrinking these tumours such as crizotinib. However, resistance to crizotinib treatment in these patients is inevitable and the cancer will begin to spread again. Recently, it has been shown that treating patients with a new anti-ALK drug, for example lorlatinib, may make the resistant tumours sensitive to treatment again.The research project will focus on why interchanging these drugs in a fixed alternating schedule may overcome drug resistance in these ALK patients.

PhD Supervisor: Associate Professor Nick Pavlakis, Professor Stephen Clarke, Dr Viive Howell, Dr Sarah Hayes and Dr Chee Lee
Priority Area:Implementation science

The study aims to measure the impact of the addition of a comprehensive evidence-based intervention to routine prenatal care in women referred to substance use in pregnancy services.

PhD Supervisor: Professor Amanda Baker
Health Practitioner/ Policy Supervisor: Conjoint Professor Adrian Dunlop
Priority Area: Health systems research

The project will develop a cohesive strategy to enable people living with cancer, their carers and health providers to use proven methods to better manage cancer nerve pain. Cancer nerve pain stops people from participating in society by causing worse physical, cognitive and social function.The project will use a national database with over 100,000 encounters to target interventions where greatest impact is expected.

Supervisor: Professor Meera Agar, Professor Jane Phillips and Professor Melanie Lovell
Health Practitioner/ Policy Supervisor: Professor Martin Stockler
Priority Area: Implementation science

Frailty in heart failure patients is linked to a significantly higher rate of hospitalisation and death. If heart failure patients who are frail can be identified earlier, solutions can be put in place to try and improve their frailty.The project will compare four different measurement tools used to assess frailty in the form of a clinical study currently taking place at St Vincent’s Hospital Sydney. The aim is to find out which is the most accurate and reliable tool for use in patients with heart failure.

PhD Supervisor: Professor Phillip Newton
Health Practitioner/ Policy Supervisor: Professor Peter Macdonald
Priority Area: Implementation science

Large studies to understand the cellular and genetic characteristics of mucinous cancers are needed to help guide diagnosis and treatment for these patients.The project will analyse large data sets of histological and molecular information to better characterise these cancers. The key aims are to find markers that improve diagnosis and uncover treatment targets.

PhD Supervisor: Professor Susan Ramus
Health Practitioner/Policy Supervisor: Professor Michael Friedlander
Priority Area: Molecular epidemiology

Preventing low blood pressure during shock is an integral part of treatment, but it is unclear what level of blood pressure is most effective for an individual patient.The aim of the research program is to compare standard care to implementation of a strategy, where patients’ pre-illness resting blood pressure is targeted during the management of shock in the intensive care unit.

PhD Supervisor: Professor John Attia
Health Practitioner/ Policy Supervisor: Professor Anthony Quail
Priority Area: Implementation science

A new taxon of a Gram negative bacterium, referred to here as GM1, has recently been discovered. GM1 appears to secrete an antibiotic-like compound, as yet uncharacterised. The PhD project will complete the genome sequence; characterisation; determine the chemical structure; and investigate the clinical usefulness of the antibiotic secreted by GM1.

PhD Supervisor: Dr Peter Anderson
Priority Area: Genomics

The focus of this research strategy is rare childhood cancers and their management.Our approach aims to increase the understanding of the biological factors that are both common to the disease types, but unique to individual patients.What is gained from the analyses of these disease paradigms is a better understanding for the treatment of cancer in the population as a whole. By increasing the understanding of the incidence of complex disease in our kids a better understanding will be gained of how to address the management of cancer in adults.

PhD Supervisor: Associate Professor Paul Kennedy
Health Practitioner/Policy Supervisor: Associate Professor Daniel Catchpoole
Priority Area: Bioinformatics

The purpose of the PhD is to test whether linking patients to existing clinical and healthy lifestyle services improves clinical outcomes and overall health risk, and reduces wait lists for specialist consultation. The PhD will specifically involve conducting a randomised controlled trial targeting healthy lifestyle behaviours in overweight and obese patients with low back pain, a systematic review of the literature, and thesis by publication.

PhD Supervisor: Dr Christopher Williams
Health Practitioner/ Policy Supervisor: Professor John Wiggers
Priority Area: Health Systems Research

This project will provide a comprehensive description of how NSW cancer biobanks are supported, what they produce, and resulting cost-benefit and cost-consequence analyses. The project will examine gaps in productivity reporting, and identify how cancer biobanks could better support researchers by considering the under-investigated perspective of biobank users.

PhD Supervisor: Professor Jennifer Byrne
Priority Area: Health economics

Doctors often care for dying patients who are cognitively impaired, and cannot make their own decisions. This can result in competing pressures on individual doctors.A national online survey of doctors will assess this problem from doctors’ own perspectives. A longitudinal study will follow up a group of doctors from early in their careers, exploring their experiences with in-depth interviews. The same doctors will be re-interviewed 2 - 3 years later, to see how they have adapted and coped, what support they have wanted or used, and what they have learnt.

PhD Supervisor: Prof Meera Agar
Health Practitioner/ Policy Supervisor: Prof Elizabeth Lobb
Priority Area: Health workforce

Geriatric hip fracture is a serious injury with high morbidity and mortality. Despite global efforts in reducing mortality with shared geriatric care models and expedited operative intervention, mortality is still high. The project is conducting ongoing epidemiological studies looking at management errors, cardioprotection, timing of surgery with anticoagulants and inpatient morbidity leading to mortality.

PhD Supervisor: Professor Zsolt Balogh Professor John Attia
Priority Area: Epidemiology

Sepsis is life-threatening organ dysfunction due to infection. The project is part of the largest ever study to determine whether giving steroids helps to reduce the mortality from septic shock. Alongside this study a cost effective analysis will be conducted to determine long-term costs and consequences of using steroids to treat patients with septic shock. This will enable an assessment of this treatment in terms of value for money. To do this, quality of life will be measured, the amount of time patients spend in intensive care and hospital, and how much each episode costs within the public hospital system up to 2-years after the episode.

PhD Supervisor: Professor Simon Finfer
Health Practitioner/ Policy Supervisor: Professor Stephen Jan
Priority Area: Health economics

Screening for domestic violence is a public health intervention introduced in NSW Health to identify domestic violence early, promote awareness, ensure safety for women and children and provide appropriate referrals connecting women with services. This research aims to:1. Identify if women who have disclosed domestic violence whilst pregnant are receiving universal child health services when they go home with their baby.2. Identify any barriers to them receiving these services.3. Develop a best practice model facilitating access to child health services for new mothers experiencing domestic violence.The results of this research will be used to inform policy and practice.

PhD Supervisor: Dr Joanne Spangaro
Health Practitioner/ Policy Supervisor: Ms Lorna McNamara
Priority Area: Health systems research

This PhD will focus on anxiety and depression among cancer patients, from an economics perspective, by exploring three questions:1. How does anxiety and depression affect cancer patients’ use of health services?2. What is the most cost effective approach to implement a clinical care pathway aimed to identify and manage anxiety and depression in cancer patients?3. Do cancer patients have preferences for how anxiety and depression are identified and managed?

PhD Supervisor: Professor Rosalie Viney
Health Practitioner/ Policy Supervisor: Dr Joanne Shaw
Priority Area: Health Economics

The research will study the ethnic differences in women affected with Gestational Diabetes Mellitus, focusing on the differences between European women and those from two ethnicities highly represented in Greater Western Sydney: the Polynesian and South Asian populations.The project aims to compare the prevalence of Gestational Diabetes Mellitus among the various ethnicities represented in Greater Western Sydney and to derive meaningful conclusions from epidemiological data collected in the region.PhD Supervisor: Professor David SimmonsPriority Area: Epidemiology

The proposed project will aim to determine the number of infections that are caused by various protozoan parasites in NSW (including Giardiasis, Cryptosporidiosis, Blastocystis, Dientamoebiasis and Amebiasis) and will determine the pathogenicity of these illnesses. The second stage of the PhD project will concentrate on the infectious protozoan parasite Giardia intestinalis as it is one of the most important non-viral causes of human diarrhoea in Australia.

PhD Supervisor: Professor John Ellis and Dr Joel Barratt
Health Practitioner/ Policy Supervisor: Dr Stephanie M. Fletcher-Lartey
Priority Area: Epidemiology

Immune Thrombocytopenia is a serious bleeding disorder caused by damage to blood cells called platelets. Platelet destruction is caused by antibodies produced in the body which attack the body’s own platelets.This project will elucidate other ways of how these antibodies destroy platelets and what can be done to stop it. Two mechanisms will be explored: decrease in platelet life span (called apoptosis); and removal of sugars from the platelet surface (called desialylation).

PhD Supervisor: Professor Beng Hock Chong and Dr Jose Perdomo
Priority Area: Translational research