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	Nossal Scholarship: Herpetologist Mr David Williams, a University of Melbourne PhD scholar in the Australian Venom Research Unit (Department of Pharmacology), is working to improve the plight of snake-bitten patients in Papua New Guinea. He has been awarded the Nossal Institute of Global Health’s inaugural PhD scholarship to support his work. Mr Williams is shown here collecting venomous New Guinea small-eyed snakes (Micropechis ikaheka) with local guides on remote Karkar Island, a volcanic island off the north coast of Papua New Guinea. [ Click to enlarge ]

Nossal Institute for Global Health:a hub for teaching, research and knowledge transfer

[ Research Review 0307 : ]

by Graeme O’Neill

The University of Melbourne has recognised eminent immunologist Professor Sir Gustav Nossal’s lifetime contributions to global health by creating a new global health institute in his honor – the Nossal Institute for Global Health.

When Professor Sir Gustav Nossal stepped down in 1996 after 31 years at the helm of Australia’s internationally renowned Walter and Eliza Hall Medical Research Institute and as Professor of Medical Biology at the University of Melbourne, he bent his considerable energy and intellect to the immense task of ridding the planet of two childhood scourges: measles and poliomyelitis.

The most recognisable face in Australian medical research, he is just as familiar in the corridors of the World Health Organization’s (WHO) headquarters in Geneva, in Switzerland.

A dedicated internationalist, Sir Gustav has championed the cause of health in developing nations since 1976, when he took a year’s sabbatical leave to work as an adviser to WHO in Geneva.

On returning to Australia, he initiated a project to develop a vaccine against malaria, a major child killer in tropical nations. And he is a leading advocate and organiser of global immunisation campaigns to eradicate childhood diseases.

Recognising Sir Gustav’s lifetime contributions to global health, the University of Melbourne has established a new global health institute in his honour – the Nossal Institute for Global Health.

Legislation to formally establish the Institute was passed in September 2006 and Professor Graham Brown was named as its inaugural director and foundation Chair in Global Health (see news item on page 38).

A Nossal protégé, Professor Brown is former head of malaria research at WEHI. A distinguished leader in global health in his own right, he is also Professor of Medicine at the Royal Melbourne Hospital.

Welcoming Professor Brown’s appointment as Foundation Director, Sir Gustav described him as “a wise and respected physician, a seasoned expert in tropical diseases, a malaria researcher of international repute and a dedicated searcher after a better world through health advancement”.

Professor Brown envisages the Institute will become a major academic research centre, in the tradition of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, and the Bloomberg School of Public Health at Johns Hopkins University.

“It’s an exciting new opportunity for the University of Melbourne,” he says. “We will tackle global health problems through basic research in areas such as vaccine development, population health, health promotion, and illness prevention.”

Professor Brown says the Institute will apply biomedical research knowledge to global health problems, harnessing the special expertise of individuals across the University and affiliated institutions through a multidisciplinary approach. It will aim to develop partnerships across disciplines, institutions, sectors and cultures around Australia, in the Asia-Pacific region, and worldwide.

Immunisation and parasitology will be focal areas. The Institute will develop immunisation programs around existing and newly introduced vaccines, while its parasitology programs will aim to prevent malaria in young children and pregnant women, and control parasitic helminth worms, a major cause of chronic anaemia in many countries.

The Institute has already awarded two PhD scholarships – one to Mr David Williams for snakebite research in Papua New Guinea, the other to Ms Rosemary Mhlanga-Gunda for research on adherence to HIV antiretroviral therapy in Zimbabwe. Plans are in place also to strengthen the global health options in the Masters program in Public Health and link with other faculties such as Engineering, Law and the Melbourne Asia Centre.

Associate Professor Tilman Ruff says that, in addition to immunisation and parasitology, the Institute would build on programs in child health, mental health, blindness prevention, oral health, diarrhoeal diseases, communicable disease control and development practice.

“Millions of children under five die every year and most deaths are potentially preventable,” he says. “There’s some exciting research being done on these diseases, including in Australia. Melbourne in particular has significant expertise.

“We’re very excited that Sir Gustav has lent the Institute his name – he’s been most supportive.”

Dr Ruff says the Institute will serve as a hub for internationally orientated teaching, research, and knowledge transfer across the University.

He says the Institute has an important role to play in fostering good health in developing nations, by ‘twinning’ with their own local health research institutes. It will also make its research and other expertise available through the national overseas aid agency, AusAID.

“The creation of the Institute ties in with the very welcome initiative by the Australian Government to double its overseas aid budget by 2010, from $2 billion to $4 billion annually, and its re‑emphasis on health within this,” he says.

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