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Friday, 8 December 2017

Two UWA teams have been fast-tracked as part of the prestigious CSIRO’s ON Accelerate program for scientific inventions to detect muscle health for elite athletes and gut health.

The program brings together the experience and expertise of established researchers, entrepreneurs and inspiring mentors, through a structured program that helps scientists turn their ground-breaking research into real-world solutions.

UWA Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Research) Professor Robyn Owens congratulated the teams on their selection and contributions to innovative health research for application in the real world.

“This is an achievement to be proud of, the teams were among 10 successful teams chosen from universities across Australia which were selected for the latest round of ON-Accelerate, ” Professor Owens said.

Dr Peter Arthur, from UWA’s School of Molecular Sciences, and his team have developed the Inflamark Concept to help elite athletes achieve peak performance and avoid muscles being overstressed by overtraining.

“Insufficient recovery from on-field performance results in muscle damage and in turn increases the likelihood of subsequent injury and under-performance,” Dr Arthur said.

“To avoid this we have developed a method that involves collecting a minute blood sample from a finger prick or the earlobe.

“Using this patented method, we can measure an aspect of inflammation which is a guide to the extent of muscle damage.”

This method takes a finger prick of blood with a small collection device which dries the blood sample before it’s sent for analysis.

The Inflamark Concept provides a more efficient blood collection because the dried blood sample does not need to be frozen or cold, instead it can be sent directly for analysis by courier or in the post.

The Noisy Guts Project , led by UWA’s Nobel Laureate Professor Barry Marshall, is addressing the persistent problem of Irritable Bowel Syndrome that affects 11 per cent of the world’s population.

“Our solution is an acoustic belt that listens, records and analyses gut noises,” Professor Marshall said.

“We use existing and proven acoustic sensing technology that was initially designed to pick up the sounds of termites.

“Our research shows a correlation between gut noises and gut disorders. Our product capitalises on today’s trend of wearable technology and is supported by a smartphone app that records symptoms.

“The end result is a safe, non-invasive screening, monitoring and diagnostic tool that could replace invasive tests such as colonoscopies.”

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Jess Reid (UWA Media and PR Advisor) (+61 8) 6488 6876

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