Westmead Health Precinct is Australia’s largest health and biomedical research precinct and a thriving hub of scientific collaboration and professional cross-fertilisation in Western Sydney – with relationships criss-crossing between four hospitals, two universities, two medical research institutes, a number of allied health centres, and NSW’s largest pathology service. Home to breakthrough research projects in genetics, public health and medical care, and a vast range of health and medical services, the Precinct is a key provider of employment in the Western Sydney region.
At the Westmead Institute for Medical Research, work is underway to determine how the herpes simplex virus spreads in the cornea of the eye; at Westmead Hospital, researchers are focused on a range of projects including the use of the botulism toxin A in spasticity; at the EPIC lab in the Children’s Hospital researchers are working on bone implants and 3D printed assistive devices.
Thousands of students study and work in the Westmead Health Precinct. The University of Sydney has had a base at Westmead Hospital since it was first built, and recently celebrated 45 years of formal partnership.
“It’s really in the last 10 years that our investment in that partnership has increased,” says Sydney University’s vice president (external engagement) Kirsten Andrews. “We have spent about $100 million since 2016 and we now have about 2,500 students and 1000 staff and affiliates working in that area.”
Sydney University students are given placements for professions including nursing, dentistry and physiotherapy in Westmead Hospital and another 300 or so research students are enrolled in the health centres and research institutes at Westmead, Andrews says. “It’s very complicated set of partnerships and relationships,” she adds. “There’s a University of Sydney logo everywhere you go.”
About 1.5 million patients are seen by medical students every year at the Sydney University’s Westmead Clinical School, she adds, with students studying a range of specialities including emergency medicine, addiction medicine, sexual health and anaesthesia. The university is about to launch a Bachelor of Biomedicine and Health based solely at Westmead Hospital.
The university’s Westmead Innovation Centre is a high-tech research and teaching hub in the Westmead Health Precinct, designed to prepare nursing and medical students for clinical practice with simulated clinical environments, avatars and virtual reality. Students can practice skills and decision-making so they are better prepared for real-life medical problems.
“It is the diversity of Western Sydney that makes it such a fascinating place to do research, because you get so much diversity in your clinical research trials and groups that it means that the findings of your research can have a really profound worldwide impact,” Andrews says.
“Sydney is going to be a very different place in 20, 30, or 40 years, and a university that’s not deeply embedded in the aspiration and appetite and potential of Western Sydney will be losing out.”
At the MARCS Institute for Brain Behaviour and Development in the Westmead Health Precinct, research is underway on how humans interact with one another, with their environment and with technology. A flagship research institute at Western Sydney University, the MARCS Institute conducts interdisciplinary research to find sustainable solutions to practical problems.
MARCS Institute director Professor Kate Stevens says Western Sydney University has a big presence in the Westmead precinct: “this is our research campus”.
A great deal of the health and medical and well-being research that the university does – such as programs for public health and prevention of dementia – is particularly tailored for the cultural and linguistic diversity of the region, she adds.
“Our work is very much focused on the local area,” she says. “The work that we do is with communities, rather than on communities. There’s a mix of qualitative research. It’s not all genomics and proteomics. It’s not all medical science.”
One particular MARCS Institute research project has found a technical solution to the problem of nerve damage in feet, often caused by type two diabetes.
More than 900,000 Australians with diabetes have Diabetic Peripheral Neuropathy (DPN) which can lead to nerve pain, a loss of feeling in the feet and serious complications such as foot ulcers, falls and even amputations.
People with this type of neuropathy might not feel their feet are too close to a fire, or a feel a stone in their shoe. White socks are recommended to alert them to the blood of a damaged foot. A wound can then become ulcerated, and all too often lead to an amputation.
Paul Breen, a MARCS Institute research professor in biomedical and human technology, says he and a colleague,Professor Jorge Serrador, have developed a device which works to amplify feeling in the foot with gentle electrical stimulation. An ankle strap with two electrodes, one sitting on either side of the ankle, the device has proved successful in multiple trials.
“We’re not restoring the sense of feeling,” Breen says. “We’re amplifying what remains, by stimulating the nerves.”
Nearly everyone who has tested the device found the feeling in their feet improved, and the worse the neuropathy, the better the effect, Breen says. After using the anklet device, which has been called Nervana, one patient said it was the first time they had felt their feet in several years.
The researchers plan to further refine a user-friendly, wearable device that will help people with diabetic neuropathy to feel their feet again, reducing the risk of falls, ulcers and amputations, easing nerve pain and improving the quality of life.
The next step for the MARCS researchers is further incremental trials, an assessment of safety aspects, and the incorporation of client feedback. With appropriate corporate funding, Breen thinks he and his colleague could have a product on the market in four years or so. With a rechargeable battery, the device should last a lifetime.
“We’re focused on the feet, because this is where we see the biggest problem,” he says. “A lot of people have neuropathy in their hands as well. It always starts with extremities. We have done some work in the hands as well and showed a similar effect.”
The idea for the device came from a discussion Breen had with an endocrinologist. He told Breen that when he diagnosed someone with diabetic neuropathy, often their first questions was: ‘what can I take for that?’
“And the answer is – nothing,” Breen says. “There is nothing there.”
MARCS director Professor Kate Steven says Westmead Medical Precinct has a rich mix of qualitative research. “It’s not all genomics and proteomics,” she says. “It’s not all medical science. There’s a lot of community-led and co-design research with communities.”
With two stellar tertiary hospitals – Westmead Hospital and the Children’s Hospital – two universities, WSU and Sydney, and the medical research institutes, Westmead Health Precinct is brimming with expertise, she adds.
“The multidisciplinary creative thinking, the problem solving: that’s happening in the ICU and happening in the operating theatre,” she says. “Those kinds of skills are not only happening in the lab.”
Financial Review