UQCCR Seminar Series - April 28 2021: Professor Jason Roberts and Elliot Teo

Professor Jason Roberts -  Challenging Resistance Breakpoints with Supranormal Antibiotic Dosing

Bio: Jason is a pharmacist working in the Intensive Care Unit at Royal Brisbane and Women’s Hospital. He is a NHMRC Practitioner Fellow, UCQQR Infectious Diseases Theme Leader and Chair of the Research Committee.

Elliot Teo - Boosting hypothermic brain protection with placental stem cell therapy

Bio: Elliot commenced his Bachelor of Biomedical Science at The University of Queensland in 2013 and tailored the coursework for specialisation in neuroscience, anatomy and physiology. In 2016, Elliot undertook an Honours project investigating the cerebral, respiratory and cardiovascular effects of vagus nerve stimulation in the rat and cat model organism. In October 2017, he commenced a Ph.D. project in the Newborn Brain Injury and Repair Laboratory led by Dr Tracey Bjorkman at the UQ Centre for Clinical Research. His project aims to characterise a human placental stem cell preparation for the treatment of neonatal hypoxic-ischemic encephalopathy.

Overview: Neonatal hypoxic-ischaemic encephalopathy (HIE) is a condition that that results from a deficit in oxygen and blood supply to the brain in the perinatal period. In Australia, HIE occurs in approximately 1.5 per 1,000 live births. The current standard care in high resource settings is therapeutic hypothermia. However, diagnosis of moderate and severe HIE this still leaves 1 in 5 babies dead, or with severe disability. So there is a pressing need to identify or develop new therapies to boost neuroprotection. This talk will present data using human placental stem cells in our piglet model of HIE, and the challenges that need to be surmounted before human trials.