News

26 February 2018

2016 Research Report now available

The 2016 Auckland DHB Research Annual Report, comprising outputs and achievements of Auckland DHB researchers, is now available. Click here to read the reportClick here to read the report

3 November 2017

Auckland Academic Health Alliance Collaborative Research Grants

Dr Margaret Wilsher and Professor John Fraser are pleased to announce the 2017 Auckland Academic Health Alliance Collaborative Research Grant round.

The five University and DHB jointly-led projects are awarded more than $340,000 to foster research relationships that promise enhancements in prevention, diagnosis and therapies.

The Alliance was created to develop and foster these relationships and we have robust expectations that the following projects will not only advance clinical science, but also demonstrate just how directly it can create very tangible patient benefits in our health system.

The researchers and grants are:

• Dr Shuan Dai and Professor Steven Dakin - $85,000 to investigate developing a rapid, objective and automated means of measuring misalignment of the eyes. Misalignment is one of the main causes of amblyopia or ‘lazy eye’, which affects 3 per cent of children.
• Dr Sheridan Wilson and Dr Annette Lasham - $60,000 to investigate monitoring of plasma RNA levels during chemotherapy treatment for metastatic breast cancer. This project is expected to generate data that will inform the development of a larger validation trial. It will add to a growing body of research exploring blood-based nucleic acids as early and accurate biomarkers of response during treatment for metastatic breast cancer.
• Dr Arend Merrie and Associate Professor Gregory O’Grady - $42,500 for a double-blind placebo-controlled trial of a novel intervention (prucalopride) to prevent post-operative ileus after elective colectomy. Reducing ileus improves patient experience and shortens the hospital stay for patients undergoing this surgery.
• Dr Giuseppe Sasso and Dr Beau Pontre - $85,000 for developing a non-invasive treatment alternative for atrial fibrillation (AF). The proposed alternative is cardiac radiotherapy with real-time magnetic resonance imaging target-tracking. AF is the most common sustained cardiac rhythm disorder - affecting 2.5 - 4% of adults. It is associated with a twofold increase in mortality compared to people with a normal heart rhythm.
• Dr Lalit Kalra and Associate Professor Cathy Stinear - $70,000 for ‘TWIST’, a prospective, single-site, assessor-blind, observational study to validate the ‘Time to Walk Independently after Stroke’ algorithm. Stroke is a common cause of adult disability, and being able to walk independently is an important rehabilitation goal. The study will provide an opportunity for a physiotherapist to complete a Master’s degree, building Allied Health research capacity within Auckland DHB.

The A+ Trust, Auckland DHB and the Faculty of Medical and Health Sciences jointly award these funds. You can find out more about the funding here and the trust at http://www.aplustrust.org.nz/ .  Congratulations to these researchers for their most impressive proposals and well-deserved grants.

14 December 2016

Winners - 2016 Young Investigator Award and Research Poster Week

2016 ADHB Young Investigator Award. The Research Office extends its warmest congratulations to Lily Wu of the New Zealand Liver Transplant Unit, winner of 2016's YIA for her presentation "Long-term Outcome after Curative Treatment for Hepatocellular Carcinoma: A Single Institution Intention-to-Treat Analysis of Orthotopic Transplantation Versus Liver Resection Versus Thermal Ablation". Lily was presented her award by CMO Dr Margaret Wilsher and Professor Andrew Shelling, Associate Dean of Research for the University of Auckland's Faculty of Medical and Health Sciences, at the Physician's Grand Round on 1st December.

Congratulations also to Suzanne Lydiard (Medical Physics and Radiation Oncology) who was named YIA Runner Up, and to finalists Cathrine Patten (Cardiovascular Research Unit) and Nick Eichler (Auckland Regional Public Health Service).

2016 Research Poster Winners.The Auckland DHB Research Poster Week is an annual snapshot of the research activity in our organisation and an opportunity to showcase to our people and our patients the ways in which research is creating new knowledge about health and the delivery of healthcare. Forty nine posters were displayed in the level 5 Atrium of Auckland City Hospital during the final week of November. Teams of judges from the fields of Health Professions, Medicine and Nursing assessed and scored the posters in their categories and winners and runners up were decided.

• Health Professions -Winner: Amy Chan (Pharmacy) - Runner Up: Barbara Cormack (Nutrition and Dietetics)
• Medical - Winner:Nicola Culliford-Semmens (Paediatric and Congenital Cardiac Service) - Runner Up: Alana Ainsworth (Paediatric Respiratory Department)
• Nursing - Winner:Laurelle Breen, Heather Cave, Kirsty Jackson and Sele Vave Patterson (Community Child Health and Disability Service) - Runner Up - Susan Atherton (Department of Critical Care Medicine)
• Starship - Winner:Amy Chan (Pharmacy) - Runner Up: Rachel Webb (Paediatric Infectious Diseases Department). We gratefully acknowledge the continued support of this competition by the Starship Foundation

Congratulations to the winners and all of our people who took part.

9 August

2015 Research Report now available

The 2015 Auckland DHB Research Annual Report, comprising outputs and achievements of Auckland DHB researchers, is now available. Read full story .

27 June 

Intensive care patients benefit from research funding

Our most unwell patients will benefit from more than $7million of funding awarded to Auckland District Health Board researchers by the Health Research Council of New Zealand (HRC).  Read more here . 

23 May 

New Auckland DHB research application form – version three

As of May 2016 only use v3 of the "Application form for approval of a research project at Auckland DHB" (for the standard approval pathway). The signature sections of the form have been updated to be more consistent with Auckland DHB organisational structure and financial policy. Also, a clinical safety sub-section has been added to the Proposal section (now Section C). The purpose of these questions are to act a prompt for researchers to consider how to pro-actively manage the risk of protocol violations when more than one Auckland DHB department will have significant involvement in the study. New application form and guidelines .

5 April 

Updated Research Office SoP – Financial Management of Research Monies

The Standard Operating Procedure for Auckland DHB financial management of research monies has recently been reviewed and updated.