Congratulations to three Monash Health neurologists who have been awarded research grants from Brain Australia, an organisation dedicated to supporting advanced brain science research and technologies aimed at improving our understanding of brain diseases and disorders.
Learn more about our neurologist winners and their funded research projects below:
Project: Co-morbidities and Multiple Sclerosis (MS) disease progression
Dr. Nevin John – Consultant Neurologist (MS) and Post-doctoral fellow
This project will use MRI to study the relationship between co-existing health conditions and the progression of Multiple Sclerosis. The research will be conducted in partnership with Monash Biomedical Imaging, Monash University.
Dr. Nevin John started his fellowship and PhD in London, 2015, where he first started his specialisation in MS. He came back to Melbourne in 2021 and re-joined Monash Health early last year. He is now the head of the MS service at Monash Health, consulting at the MS clinic twice a week and continuing his research at Monash University. At the Monash Health Translation Precinct, Dr. Nevin can continue consulting while furthering his research that he started in London.
“It’s relatively new area for MS. At the moment we know there is an association between MS and co-morbidities such as high cholesterol and blood pressure. The research will help us get initial data on how the presence of co-morbidities influence brain health. We will use state of the art MRI to progress what we learned in London, here in Melbourne.”
Project: Monash Health Status Epilepticus Registry
Dr Subramanian (Subra) Muthusamy – Consultant Neurologist (Epilepsy), PhD Student
The project will establish a registry of adult patients diagnosed with status epilepticus at Monash Health. It will be the first of its kind in Australia and we hope that it becomes a starting point for a nationwide registry collaboration. The registry will enable us to study all aspects of the diagnosis, management and prognosis of this serious neurologic condition. It will attract trainees interested in undertaking further specialist clinical training and research in this field.
Subra was drawn to neurology because of the challenge, intellectual stimulation and rewards from studying the field.
“As a neurologist you spend lots of time understanding each patient’s symptoms and how they are affected by them. We frequently work as part of a multidisciplinary team to deliver treatment plans that can best help patients manage their condition. In addition to this, I also had great role models as a trainee which solidified my reason to pursue a career as a neurologist.”
“Status epilepticus is a serious condition and a neurologic emergency. It is characterised by uncontrolled and prolonged seizure activity and as many as one in five patients diagnosed with this condition do not survive. Expert body clinical guidelines recommend timely and appropriate interventions to stop the seizure activity and achieve the best possible outcome for patients. We also hope to develop a better understanding of this condition and work towards developing better treatments.”
For Subra, starting the first adult Australia registry for status epilepticus will help evaluate how real-life practice and care processes reflect these expert body guidelines.
“To our knowledge, this is the first of its kind in Australia.
“A registry is a database that contains information about people diagnosed with a particular disease. Information collected would include the circumstances in which they were diagnosed, the results of diagnostic tests, treatments they received and the eventual outcomes.
“Disease registries are a good way to understand how a disease behaves, evaluate current treatment guidelines, and identify barriers to providing the best possible care to patients. It is particularly useful for better understanding complex diseases with complex treatment pathways such as status epilepticus.”
Project: Predicting Cognitive Impairment in Stroke patients
Dr Jason Vuong – Consultant Neurologist (Stroke), PhD Student
The goal of this project is to create a web-based application that can predict cognitive impairment in stroke patients using clinical and imaging findings within 48 hours of onset. This will help advance the understudied and underutilised field of cognitive rehabilitation.
Jason has been a Monash Health doctor at Clayton since 2017 and completed his studies at the University of Melbourne.
“I just finished training to be a neurologist last year and have started consulting. I always found the brain mysterious and fascinating.”
“Work that’s been done previously has been focused on the rehabilitation phase of their condition and the assessment of a patient’s impairment after the fact. But there are limited studies on predicting cognitive impairment.”
“In the application clinicians input data on their patient’s condition. And then the application will output information and predict impairments to the patient’s condition. A machine-learning training model will be programmed in the application. Being a web-based application is a means of accessibility.”
“By recognising cognitive impairment earlier, it will improve hospital resources, patient resources and a better quality of life.”
Jason was also recently awarded the Research Training Program Stipend Scholarship from Monash University.
Congratulations to Nevin, Subra and Jason for their grant success and contributions to research in clinical neuroscience.
Approved by Associate Professor Anjali Dhulia (Chief Medical Officer, Executive Director, Medical Services)