Science On The Swan 2022 – Creating Impact through Healthcare Innovation and Commercialisation

 

Science on the Swan (SOTS) 2022 has successfully concluded after three days of inspirational talks, shared learnings and useful networking around the theme of Creating Impact through Healthcare Innovation and Commercialisation. Officially opened by Minister Stephen Dawson, this was the seventh SOTS conference hosted by the Western Australian Health Translation Network.

During the opening speech, Minister Stephen Dawson also shared exciting news for the WA Health and Medical sector as he announced the collaboration between Texas Medical Center (TMC), the largest medical city in the world, and Biodesign Australia, which is administered by The University of Western Australia. This partnership is a huge step in strengthening the State’s health and medical science sector promoting research, innovation and commercialisation resulting in greater investment, more local jobs and ultimately, improvements in health and wellbeing. He further announced that WA will be hosting TMC at the AusBiotech Conference 2022 which is being held in Perth in October this year.

Over three days, we saw more than 60 presentations from researchers and clinicians across a wide range of expertise, along with panel discussions, posters and many networking opportunities. The program covered a diverse range of topics including opportunities and challenges faced by WA innovators; patent and commercialisation frameworks; consumer and community involvement in innovation, as well as insightful discussions on how we could work together as a sector to enable optimisation of healthcare environment in WA. Additionally, the SOTS conference brought us international biomedical innovations with guest speakers including Dr Eyal Zimlichman, MD (Sheba Medical Centre, Israel), Dr Kate Hilyard (UK Vaccine Taskforce) and Prof Michael Wallach (SPARK Oceania).

The keynote speaker for SOTS 2022 was one of our very own WA stars, Dr Craig Challen, 2019 Australian of the Year who shared an inspiring story on how he and Dr Richard Harris led an international crew to save a soccer team of twelve boys and their coach in the 2018 Thai Cave Rescue. This was the ultimate case study in on-the-spot innovation by brilliant people and implementation of techniques not previously trialled with one sole purpose – to save those trapped in the cave. We were also delighted to welcome Dr Ruben Meerman, the surfing scientist, who shared his fascinating discovery on the periodic table and how breathing helps lose weight.

Overall, it was a successful event and really highlighted the critical role of WAHTN as we brought together WA’s universities, medical research institutes, public and private hospitals, and the WA Department of Health, to embrace and accelerate research translation. Congratulations and thank you to everyone who presented, supported, and attended the Science on the Swan 2022 Conference.

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WAHTN Media and Communications  – Hannah Vu (08 6151 0919)