College of Humanities, Arts and Social Science researchers in ARC grant success, a new project is set to improve outcomes for plasma cancer patients, and annual The Conversation showcase shares Flinders’ Aboriginal heritage expertise.
ARC society and culture grant success
Together with Flinders University researchers leading four grants awarded under the ARC’s Special Research Initiative for the Australian Society, History and Culture scheme this month, two externally-led projects feature Flinders University researchers as Chief Investigators.
‘Art at a crossroads: Aboriginal responses to contact in northern Australia Funding’ will investigate historical Aboriginal responses to ‘contact’ with newcomers to their land. It will generate new knowledge using systematic recordings of rock art and bark paintings created during the last 400 years in western Arnhem Land, with Chief Investigators Associate Professor Liam Brady and Dr Daryl Wesley.
‘Fugitive Traces: Reconstructing Yulluna experiences of the frontier’ focuses on oral histories held by a prominent Aboriginal family whose history is enmeshed within the Queensland Native Mounted Police. The project aims to consider family history in the broader context of colonial settlement and the complexities of frontier conflict, with Chief Investigator Professor Heather Burke.
Grant to improve outcomes for plasma cancer patients
Patients with multiple myeloma, a type of blood cancer, are set to benefit from promising new research at Flinders University which seeks to rapidly diagnose patients with the poorest prognosis and fast-track treatments for this vulnerable group.
Dr Craig Wallington-Beddoe has been awarded a $130,000 research grant co-funded by Flinders Foundation and The Hospital Research Foundation, for his work which seeks to find new treatments by targeting a protein on the surface of the cancer cells in the bone marrow.
Dr Wallington-Beddoe, who is also Head of Myeloma and Amyloidosis Services and Director of Haematology Clinical Trials at Flinders Medical Centre, recently discovered with colleagues that a specific protein biomarker is overexpressed in 20-30 per cent of multiple myeloma patients, with this group three times more likely to die within six years of diagnosis.
He has been awarded the funding to quickly identify newly-diagnosed multiple myeloma patients who express the protein, so they can receive the best available therapies right away. Read more
Annual showcase shares Aboriginal heritage expertise
The Conversation’s annual yearbook is out this month, with 50 articles from Australia’s leading thinkers including Flinders University alumna and casual academic Jacinta Koolmatrie (BArchaeol ’16, ArchHMgmt(Adv) ‘17) and Associate Professor Jonathan Benjamin.
The publication, 2020: The Year That Changed Us, will be available to purchase on 27 October for $21.99.
Ms Koolmatrie’s essay on the appalling destruction this year of the 46,000 year-old Aboriginal heritage site Juukan Gorge was chosen as the lead article for the volume.
The discovery of an ancient Aboriginal archaeological site preserved on the sea bed off the Pilbara coast was the focus of an essay by Associate Jonathan Benjamin and colleagues also chosen for the annual collection.