Women's and Children's Research News

December 2024

Season’s greetings!

The end of the year is a great time to reflect on past achievements and consider opportunities and challenges ahead. We’re drawing to the end of what has been a huge year of research at WCHN, with many successes, large and small, across the entire Network.

Some recent highlights have been WCHN Research Week 2024 from 6-8 November, which included the launch of WCHN Research Impact 2023. Generously supported by the WCH Foundation, Research Week was a fantastic opportunity to hear from inspiring members of our research community and beyond. In fact, I have subsequently been contacted by many of you who are now considering enrolling in a PhD or would like to get your own research started within your department. The launch of WCHN Research Impact by Her Excellency the Honourable Frances Adamson AC, Governor of South Australia, and my recent presentation at the WCHN Public Forum, showcased the incredible impact that is being made by our researchers in new treatments and cures that are having life-changing results. For all those undertaking research in any capacity at the WCHN, please include the WCHN in your affiliations so we can recognise and include your publication and the impact it is having and include it in the Research Week awards.

Read WCHN Research Impact 2023 here.

Watch the Research Impact video here.

I would like to acknowledge all those who have contributed to research at WCHN throughout 2024 including our medical, nursing and midwifery, allied health and discovery researchers and the support staff, administrators, consumer advocates and patients who make it all possible.

A huge thank you to my team in the Women’s and Children’s Research Centre, including Dr Jennie Louise, Dr Melissa McCradden, Dr Emma Jeffs, Ms Kate Chadwick, Ms Louise Goodchild, Prof Jenny Fereday and Dr Tom Kontou for all their support this year.

I’d like to end by wishing you and your families a very happy festive season. The Women’s and Children’s Research Centre, the Research Secretariat and I look forward to working with you again in 2025.

Research Week Feedback Survey

We are keen to make every Research Week better than the one before, which is why we have developed a short survey to get feedback on this year’s event.

We’d like to hear from you, whether you were able to attend or not.

Access the Research Week evaluation survey here or scan the QR code.

Research Secretariat Christmas Shutdown

The WCHN Research Secretariat office will be closed from 20 December 2024 to 2 January 2025.

WCHN Human Research Ethics Committee (HREC) - Seeking nursing member(s)/proxy members

The WCHN HREC is currently seeking Nursing and Midwifery members/proxy members. In keeping with 5.1.36 of the National Statement on Ethical Conduct in Human Research, the HREC is committed to facilitating “diversity, including gender diversity” in its membership. The WCHN Human Research Ethics Committee considers research applications and research audit applications involving patients, patients’ families, members of the community and WCHN staff. Membership is in keeping with the requirement of the National Health and Medical Research Council National Statement on Ethical Conduct in Human Research - https://www.nhmrc.gov.au/about-us/publications/national-statement-ethical-conduct-human-research-2023

Further information on the WCHN HREC can be found on our website here.

The current vacancy is for a person with knowledge of, and current experience in, the professional care or treatment of people. Specifically, due to a vacancy on the HREC, a member from within Nursing and Midwifery is required.

Full HREC Members are required to attend scheduled meetings each month in order to meet quorum requirements. Meetings are usually held on the fourth Wednesday of each month (excluding January) via MS Teams, commencing at 12.00pm for up to three hours. Positions on the HREC are honorary.

For a description of the responsibilities of HREC members, please see Sections 5.2 of the National Statement on Ethical Conduct in Human Research.

Further information may be obtained by contacting: Ms Mary Thorne – mary.thorne@sa.gov.au or Ms Jade Jordan-Hall – jade.jordan-hall@sa.gov.au.

Interested persons are welcome to discuss membership on the committee with Dr Tamara Zutlevics, Chair, WCHN HREC – tamara.zutlevics@sa.gov.au.

Please send a cover letter (addressed to Dr Tamara Zutlevics) stating relevant interests and short Curriculum Vitae, including the names of three referees to mary.thorne@sa.gov.au.

Closing date: Thursday 19 December 2024

This advertisement has the approval of the Executive Director, Medical Services.

Outstanding Workforce Leaders (OWL) Research Program Graduates

The Rosemary Bryant AO Research Centre at the University of South Australia has developed the OWL research program to develop the research skills of nurses and midwives including a literature review, research proposal and presentation. Students use clinical issues they observe in practice as the basis for their research project. The course was developed in collaboration with South Australian Local Health Networks (LHNs) and is supported by the LHNs, with every student assigned a mentor.

Four WCHN candidates completed the course in 2024 and presented their projects during Research Week.

Kate Frawley, “Breast feeding pump and flange choice”
Jamie Logan, “Use of acuneedling and acupressure for women presenting for an induction of labour”
Emma King, “Hypergranulation at the gastronomy site”
Rowan Morgan, “RQI cart: Healthcare workers increased confidence and skill level in providing effective CPR”

There will be an opportunity to apply for the OWL program in 2025 and UniSA is reviewing the criteria to extend the program to other health professionals.

For research training and funding opportunities, please visit the WCHN website:

Channel 7 Research Foundation grant

Congratulations to WCH Paediatric Endocrinologist and University of Adelaide Associate Professor, Alexia Peña, who recently won a Channel 7 Research Foundation grant of $90,679 for her project titled “Addressing unmet emotional wellbeing care needs among children and adolescents with Type 2 diabetes: A mixed-methods longitudinal evaluation of diabetes-specific distress and emotional wellbeing”.

2023 WCHN Research Publication Awards

The second annual WCHN Research Publication Awards were announced at the WCHN Research Symposium during Research Week. Congratulations to the following winners:

Channel 7 Children’s Foundation WCHN Trainee or HDR Publication Award: Monica Diaz for “What women want: A reflexive thematic analysis of the healthcare experiences of women with female genital mutilation/cutting in South Australia”. Read the research here.
WCH Foundation Early and Mid-Career Researcher Publication Award: Dr Tara Crawford, for “Does donor sex influence the potential for transfusion with washed packed red blood cells to limit transfusion-related immune responses in preterm newborns?” Read the research here.
Hospital Research Foundation Senior Researcher Publication Award: Professor Christopher Barnett for “Genomic autopsy to identify underlying causes of pregnancy loss and perinatal death.” Read the research here.

2024 WCHN Spark Research Seed Funding Program Outcomes

The inaugural WCHN Spark Research Seed Funding Program funded early and mid-career researchers and PhD students at the WCHN to undertake innovative research projects that benefit the health of women, babies, children and young people. The 2024 program was proudly sponsored by The Hospital Research Foundation. Announced at WCHN Research Week, the 2024 recipients are:

Dr Prabha Andraweera, 'Genomic characterisation of Streptococcus agalactiae from carriage positive pregnant women and infants with Group B Streptococcal disease in South Australia.'
Dr Khalida Perveen, 'Evaluating the critical period for reprogramming T cell development to prevent allergy.'
Meredith Smith, 'Innovative Approaches to Assessing the Impact of Pain in Youth with Cerebral Palsy and Diverse Cognitive and Communication Abilities.'
Dr Hassen Mohammed, 'A population-based data linkage project evaluating maternal immunisation programs in South Australia.'

The scheme will likely expand in 2025 with additional categories. Information is available here.

WCH Foundation HDR Student Rapid Fire Competition

Aspiring research communicator and PhD student, Sarah Battersby, from the Molecular Immunology Group, won the Research Week HDR Student Rapid Fire Competition with her fantastic, animated presentation on “Small scale transcriptomic and functional analysis of rare Treg populations in long-COVID”. In this competition, students had just four minutes and three slides to communicate the significance of their research projects to Research Symposium attendees.

Congratulations to all these worthy winners!

Ethical challenges to integrating AI into healthcare

AI Ethicist and WCHN AI Director Dr Melissa McCradden says machine learning is exceptionally good at pattern recognition and pattern recognition is important to medicine. The challenge lies in determining how to rigorously test AI tools before they are translated into clinical use, to ensure they have equivalent evidence supporting their efficacy, safety, and fairness as other medical tools.

Read the story here: https://cosmosmagazine.com/technology/ai/ethical-challenges-ai-healthcare/

Assessing what makes a reasonable decision with AI

Dr Melissa McCradden and her co-author Dr Ian Stedman outline one of the major challenges in health AI – explainability – and explore whether explanations of specific predictions for individuals is absolutely necessary to make a good decision.

Read about the research here:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2514664524015613

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