Macquarie University Psychology

Macquarie University and GE Healthcare form new medical alliance to tackle brain disease

GE Healthcare, a unit of General Electric Company, and the Australian School of Advanced Medicine at Macquarie University are joining forces to break new ground in the early identification and treatment of brain diseases like hypertension and arteriovenous malformations (AVMs).

Approximately $831 million is spent annually in Australia on the prevention and treatment of hypertension, which affects an estimated 600 million people worldwide.

While AVMs are not common - the incidence is about one diagnosis per 100,000 people per year - they are the most common cause of intercerebral haemorrhage for people under 40 and therefore are of particular concern to younger people.

GE Healthcare will make a significant contribution of sponsorship and equipment over three years to support neuroscience research at the school. The partnership is a major achievement for the newly established Australian School of Advanced Medicine, which provides specialty training for surgeons and physicians. Macquarie is one of the few universities to be named an international luminary research site by GE Healthcare. Other research partners include the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Imperial College London, Oxford University and the European Cancer Centre in Milan.

Macquarie University Vice-Chancellor, Professor Steven Schwartz welcomed the new agreement.

"This partnership is testament to the very high quality of researchers and clinicians assembled at the new Australian School of Advanced Medicine," he said. "It's exciting to consider what benefits to patients might result from their collaboration with other leading researchers around the world based at GE's partner sites."

Country Manager of GE Healthcare, Harry Simeonidis, said GE Healthcare was committed to working with the healthcare community to move the focus from treating symptomatic ‘late-stage' disease to earlier pre-symptomatic detection and intervention.

"Catching chronic neurological disease earlier than we do at present, will have a critical impact on healthcare providers and more importantly, patients' lives," Mr Simeonidis said. "Macquarie University will play a significant role in developing innovative ways to identify and treat some of today's most pressing neurological problems."