CELLULAR INTERACTIONS RESPONSIBLE FOR DEVELOPMENT, MAINTENANCE, AND STRENGTH OF THE SKELETON
With
Prof Natalie A Sims, PhD.
Deputy Director, St. Vincent’s Institute,
Melbourne, Australia
RESEARCHER PROFILE
Filmed in Melbourne, Australia | May 2025
Professor Sims directs the Bone Cell Biology and Disease Unit at St. Vincent’s Institute of Medical Research and is a Professorial Fellow at The University of Melbourne and Australian Catholic University.
She leads a team who studies the cellular interactions responsible for development, maintenance, and strength of the skeleton. She completed her PhD at the University of Adelaide, followed by postdoctoral work at the Garvan Institute in Sydney then at Yale School of Medicine, in New Haven, Connecticut, where she studied the role of the estrogen receptor in regulating bone structure.
She returned to Australia in 2001 to set up a laboratory at St. Vincent’s Hospital and SVI. Her laboratory studies the cellular interactions responsible for development, maintenance, and strength of the skeleton, including the IL-6 family of cytokines, using genetically altered mouse models, in vitro system and human specimens. She has published more than 140 peer reviewed original research articles, 48 peer reviewed review articles and commentaries, and 20 published chapters; H index of 64 (Scopus); more than 13,500 career citations.
Her work has been recognised by awards from her colleagues internationally, including the International Bone and Mineral Society Herbert A Fleisch Award (2013) and the American Society of Bone and Mineral Research (ASBMR) Fuller Albright Award (2010) and Paula Stern Award (2020).
She is a Deputy Editor of the Journal of Bone and Mineral Research and serves on the Editorial Board of the Journal of Biological Chemistry. She has served as President of the Australia and New Zealand Bone and Mineral Society and is currently Executive Secretary of the International Federation of Musculoskeletal Research Societies.
Source: Supplied
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Benefits of prehabilitation ahead of surgery
Dr Matthew Wallen PhD, AES, AEP is a Senior Research Fellow in Cancer Survivorship, the Deputy Lead of the Cancer Survivorship Program, and a Senior Lecturer in Exercise Science and Clinical Exercise Physiology within the College of Nursing and Health Sciences at Flinders University, in South Australia. His clinical interest focuses on improving outcomes for people requiring major surgery, specifically (1) lifestyle interventions, including exercise, nutritional, and psychological support to improve the health and wellbeing of people prior to surgery, termed ‘prehabilitation’, (2) novel physical function assessments aimed at identifying people at risk of treatment-related complications, and (3) implementation of new models of care in cancer.
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Links investigated between poor sleep and onset of dementia
Watch Samantha Bramich, a PHD candidate at the Wicking Dementia Research and Education Centre, University of Tasmania talk on identify the prevalence of rapid eye movement sleep behaviour disorder (RBD) in Tasmania and how poor sleep contributes to the onset of dementia and other diseases.
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RESEARCH IMPACT SAHMRI, SOUTH AUSTRALIA (2023)
South Australian Health and Medical Research Institute, also known as SAHMRI has had significant impacts in various areas over the past ten years, and this year is celebrating its 10 year anniversary with a week of events.
Ahead of the anniversary, Executive Director, Professor Maria Makrides spoke to Bench Side Story about 3 achievements in the past 10 years that have had significant impact
