Hudson Institute researchers and Acting CEO meet with Harold Mitchell

L-R: Dr Dean Popovski, Mr Harold Mitchell,
Dr Stacey Ellery, Professor Paul Hertzog.

Past recipients of The Harold Mitchell Foundation Travel Fellowships met with businessman and philanthropist, Mr Harold Mitchell, at a function on Tuesday to celebrate the success of our young biomedical researchers who have received travel fellowships.

Two of our 2017 fellowship recipients, Dr Stacey Ellery and Dr Dean Popovski and our Acting CEO, Professor Paul Hertzog attended the event.

Supporting young scientists

The Harold Mitchell Travel Fellowships equip young scientists with the experience, knowledge and professional links to help them make a major difference in medical research in Australia and around the world.

The fellowships enable a promising young Hudson Institute scientist and student to travel overseas to participate in conferences and receive mentoring and support from leading specialists in their field.

The Harold Mitchell Foundation was launched in 2000 to make a positive and sustainable difference health, education and the arts in the community. The Foundation has provided more than $6 million in grants funding to over 100 different organisations. See our 2018 recipients.

Opening doors

Dr Ellery, a postdoctoral scientist in the Embryology and Placental Biology laboratory in The Ritchie Centre was a recipient of the award in 2017.  She travelled to Manchester, UK, to present an oral presentation titled "Creatine Synthesis in Fetal Growth Restriction and Preeclampsia: Potential Implications for Placental Bioenergetics", at the International Federation of Placental Associations (IFPA) meeting. She also attended the invite-only International Placental Biophysics Workshop, to engage with, and learn from, those at the forefront of advancing Dual Placental Perfusion technology.

"The Harold Mitchell Travel Fellowship provided me with a unique opportunity to engage with an international consortium of placental physiologists, biophysicists, mathematicians and industrialists," Dr Ellery says.

"The overall goal of this group is to promote human placental test systems (i.e. Dual Ex Vivo Placental Perfusion) as the 'go-to' tool for pregnancy toxicology studies. Bringing these technologies back to Hudson Institute could see our Institute become the Asia-Pacific leaders in this area of maternal and fetal medicine R&D."

Dr Popovski (now at the Monash Institute of Pharmceutical Science) was a PhD student in the Developmental and Cancer Biology laboratory in the Centre for Cancer Research when he received he received the award in 2017. He travelled to Washington D.C. to present his work on the novel use of low-dose Panobinostat to improve treatment strategies in rare paediatric solid tumours at the 110th American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) conference, a prestigious conference gathering the leading specialist scientists and cancer clinicians to discuss novel findings in cancer biology, prevention strategies and implementation of novel therapeutics. Furthermore, the Harold Mitchell Travel Fellowship helped support Dean in his visits to the Cantor lab at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston and the Knox lab at the University of California, San Francisco to share his work at well-renowned research institutes.

"The Harold Mitchell Travel Fellowship has provided a fantastic opportunity to share my work on novel treatment strategies in rare paediatric cancers with world-leading researchers and oncologists. The ability to promote our research and network with other research groups that share similar aims has led to the formation of a strong global collaboration and renowned international support for our paediatric program," Dr Popovski says.