Wagner Medal win a well kept secret

When Anna Nowak arrived at the NCARD lab meeting on 22 April and found the room not only arranged with neat rows of chairs, banners and a lectern, but spotted the Heads of Department of both UWA Biomedical Sciences and the School of Medicine, and various research colleagues and collaborators in the room, she started to realise something was up. Presented with the award by previous Wagner Medallist Prof Bruce Robinson, the hastily arranged NCARD ceremony was put together in secret, and the win kept to ourselves until the film of the event was played at the end of the iMig conference.

Portrait fundraiser and the Professors

Hayley Caddy's fabulous fundraiser offered the perfect opportunity for us to show our appreciation of two of our pioneering Western Australian mesothelioma researchers. Professor Bill Musk (left) and Professor Bruce Robinson (right) are pictured here with Professor Anna Nowak, holding the portraits that we commissioned from the very talented Hayley.

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iMig Conference success

Held as a virtual conference for the first time on the weekend of May 7-9, the iMig Conference, originally to be held in Brisbane in 2020, actually had several advantages: pre-recorded presentations that were missed could be watched later by conference registrants, and some staff and students who would not normally be able to attend an international conference could participate. An astounding 19 NCARD staff and students were conference chairs, panellists, oral presenters or contributed posters. A mammoth undertaking by the three conference chairs from three different time zones, Sam Armato in Chicago, Ken O'Byrne in Brisbane and NCARD's Anna Nowak here in Perth, the conference, despite the disappointment of COVID-related postponement, was a great success.

Hon Katrina Stratton MLA visits NCARD

We were delighted to host our new local MP, the Hon Dr Katrina Stratton MLA at NCARD. Dr Stratton is the first Labor MP, and the first woman, to hold the Seat of Nedlands since it was founded in 1930.

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Podcasts and webinars

Anna Nowak has become a much sought after speaker on podcasts and webinars, both in Australia and elsewhere. Some are aimed at an audience of clinicians and oncologists; others, such as the Mesothelioma Matters Webinar, are especially for a community audience, travelling all the way from Wittenoom, the town so dangerous it's been literally taken off the map (see Pilbara road sign, left) to an explanation of immunotherapy, and combining it with chemotherapy. Podcasts

A kinder kind of science

A team of four NCARD PhD students – Caitlin Tilsed, Jess Boulter, Lizeth Orozco and Nicola Principe – have been inspired by an international movement which originated in New Zealand, explored and embraced its purpose and truly moved it forward in the first half of this year in a project supported by the UWA Alumni Fund.

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Apply for a Vacation Scholarship

NCARD has had many talented and enthusiastic young researchers and future clinicians and scientists join us over December and January through vacation scholarship programs.

We are inviting undergraduate students interested in applying for a CCWA Vacation Scholarship to email us at ncard-research@uwa.edu.au to discuss their skills/interests and possible projects. Anyone interested needs to get in touch asap.

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