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Four leading medical scientists from The University of Western Australia have been inducted as new Fellows to the prestigious Australian Academy of Health and Medical Sciences.

Professors Donna Cross, Susan Prescott, Wendy Erber and Peter Klinken were among 77 new Fellows inducted at a special ceremony in Canberra following the academy’s first Annual Scientific meeting at the Australian National University.

President of the Academy Professor Ian Frazer said the election of the new Fellows reflected their international standing of their contribution to health and medical science through research, leadership and service.

“Their future contribution to the field will contribute to ensuring that users of the healthcare system in Australia are offered the best quality of care using the latest in advances in health research,” he said.

Professor Donna Cross is based at the UWA-affiliated Telethon Kids Institute where she has an international reputation for developing and rigorously testing school-based interventions that contribute to sustainable changes in policy and practice.

Named WA's Australian of the Year in 2012 in recognition of her work to improve the health and wellbeing of young people, she is also the founder and chief researcher of Friendly Schools, the first anti-bullying initiative for schools developed through extensive research with Australian children and adolescents.

Professor Susan Prescott works at the School of Paediatrics and Child Health at UWA and is also a Paediatric Allergist and Immunologist at the Princess Margaret Hospital for Children, and Associate Director (Research) at the Telethon Kids Institute.

Director of the World Allergy Organisation, her expertise is focused around early life risk factors for inflammation as an antecedent for a broad range of noncommunicable diseases, with a particular interest in early onset NCDs such as allergic disease.

Professor Prescott is also Director of the ORIGINS Project, a new partnership between Telethon Kids Institute and Joondalup Health Campus to find 'early life solutions to the modern health crisis'.

Head of UWA’s School of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, Professor Wendy Erber has been working in diagnostic haematology for nearly 30 years.

Her specific areas of interest and expertise are cellular haematology, and particularly the integrated approach to the diagnosis and assessment of haematological malignancies.

Chief Scientist of WA, Professor Peter Klinken is highly regarded for advancing the understanding of genes involved in leukaemia, cancer and anaemia, and his many research achievements include the discovery of a gene that supresses the growth of tumours.

He played a key role in establishing the State's premier adult medical research institute, the Harry Perkins Institute of Medical Research (previously the Western Australian Institute for Medical Research) in 1998.

Telethon Kids Institute Patron, UWA’s Professor Fiona Stanley, was one of 13 outstanding individuals to join Sir Gustav Nossal as Honorary Fellows of the Academy, with their awards acknowledging their significant contributions to academic medicine in Australia and the establishment of the Academy.

Caption (clockwise from left): New Australian Academy of Health and Medical Sciences Fellows, Professors Susan Prescott, Donna Cross, Peter Klinken and Wendy Erber.

Media references

David Stacey (UWA Media and Public Relations Manager)      (+61 8) 6488 3229 / (+61 4) 32 637 716
Tammy Gibbs (Telethon Kids Institute)                                (+61 8) 9489 7963 / (+61 4) 08 946 698