Additive BIO Fabrication: Impact, Opportunities and Challenges

Written by:

Prof. Gordon Wallace and Dr Stephen Beirne
Follow Gordon on Twitter: @gordongwallace

ARC Centre of Excellence for Electromaterials Science (ACES)
Intelligent Polymer Research Institute, AIIM Facility, Innovation Campus
University of Wollongong, Wollongong, NSW 2522, Australia

First published in ATSE magazine (Academy of  Technological Science & Engineering)

In recent years we have outrun our ability to fabricate structures from the amazing materials that we can now create. While this can be said of many areas of materials research it is particularly so in the area of biomaterials. Here, we are often confronted with delicate compositions with nano- to microscopic features that will not survive the traditional (hammer and chisel) approach to fabrication. There is good reason why nature “grows” complex, highly functional structures. Such structures with functionality determined by the spatial distribution of composition with nanodimensional resolution can not be chiselled from a slab of material.

Additive fabrication (AdFab), often referred to as 3D Printing, involves layer-by-layer deposition and fusion of materials to create customised structures. The structure to be produced can be conceptualised, manipulated and defined within a growing array of modelling environments; from conventional parametric Computer-Aided Design (CAD) solutions such as Solidworks™ or ProE™, through to free-form animation toolsets such as Autodesk 3ds Max™, and even free web-based applications like Tinkercad™ (www.tinkercad.com). Once a design is completed, a file that describes the structures’ surface geometry is generated and a set of digitised instructions then drives the printer to create the required structure layer by layer.

The fabrication process can involve several deposition modes. In fused deposition modelling / extrusion printing, a molten build material is deposited and solidified on cooling.  For higher resolution structures (layer thicknesses as low as 16 µm), a fluid material precursor is ink-jetted onto a substrate and simultaneously transformed into a solid structure via a chemical reaction (UV induced polymerisation). Metal structures can be fabricated through a physical micron-scale welding process known as selective laser melting.

The Impact

The recent race to embrace AdFab has had significant wide-ranging impact on those of us involved in biomaterials and biodevices research. For example:-

In Wollongong, we have established Additive Biofabrication capabilities within a dedicated Processing and Devices Facility (Figure 1). Equipment housed here includes commercial additive fabrication systems like the Objet Connex 350™ and Relaizer SLM50™, commercial bio-fabrication systems such as the EnvisonTec Bioplotter™, and customised printing systems such as the KIMM SPS1000, a Reactive Ink-jet Printer and an Extrusion Printer. A more detailed description can be found at http://www.electromaterials.edu.au/equipment/index.html

Figure 1: AdBioFab at Innovation Campus – UOW

The ability to create customised 3D polymeric or metallic structures in the laboratory accelerates experimental design by enhancing the realisation of material components that facilitate experimentation. Additive fabrication provides an in-house capability to design and realise unique set ups in a minimal period of time.

One case in point was the development of an experimental procedure to electrically stimulate cells in vitro on organic conducting polymer surfaces (a study in the field of “Organic Bionics”[1]). Off-the-shelf chamber wells were removed from their original substrate and bonded to a conducting polymer coated gold Mylar substrate to act as a media reservoir. A custom platinum counter electrode mount was produced by additive fabrication (see Figure 2). The mount allows accurate placement of the platinum mesh electrodes in the media reservoir and ensures a repeatable electrode orientation. A proprietary bio-compatible material, Objet MED610™, was chosen as the build material. Production of these components by conventional machining would have been relatively expensive and would not have easily facilitated the small dimensional features of the component.

Batch production of biocompatible components using Objet MED610™ for use in biological experiments (Fig. 2.A)

Platinum mesh electrode mount as used to provide repeatable spacing between electrode surfaces during cell stimulation trials
(Fig. 2.B).

Another example of experimental tool production involved the development of a device to enable studies related to the alleviation of eye pressure arising from glaucoma; a study led by Prof. Michael Coote at the Centre for Eye Research Australia. Concept outline sketches were provided and translated into 3D CAD models. Graphical representations of the implant design allowed for revisions and modifications to be easily communicated and implemented before fabrication (Figure 3).

Batch production of an array of design permutations was achieved in a single build tray printing cycle. Design iterations were simply undertaken without any concern for re-tooling of the hardware.

Figure 3: Illustration depicting concept glaucoma implant as developed within Solidworks™ 2012 and highlighting external dimensions. Completed device as produced using Objet MED610™, after addition of 700 μm OD silicone tubing.

These examples illustrate what can be achieved with commercially available machinery and materials. In other aspects of our work within the ARC Centre of Excellence for Electromaterials Science (ACES), we are concerned with the fabrication of structures containing biopolymers, organic conductors and even living cells within new structures for bionics[1].

Existing commercially available equipment can not handle such materials. Consequently we have been involved with the Korean Institute of Machinery and Materials (KIMM) and the company M4T, who have supplied a customised Scaffold Plotting System (SPS1000™) that is capable of extrusion printing biopolymers; including synthetic biodegradables such as polycaprolactone, or naturally occurring biopolymers such as chitosan. Using this system, we have printed 3D scaffolds (Figure 4(a)). The lower feature size is limited to about 200 µm and is determined by the rheological properties of the bio-ink. Such structures have previously proven useful as scaffolds for tissue regeneration. More recently we have modified this extrusion printer to enable co-axial printing. This required the design and fabrication of a dual reservoir system and a co-axial print head (Figure 4(b)). These components were designed and fabricated in-house – the printhead itself was produced using a 3D metal printer – the era of printing printers is upon us!  Co-axial structures with an inner core diameter range of 200 to 500 µm and an outer core of 600 to 1200 µm diameter were produced. This customised co-axial printing system has already proven useful for the creation of alginate / polycaprolactone co-axial 3D structures and even the creation of structures containing living cells[2].

4a: Porous polycaprolactone (PCL) structures produced through hot-melt extrusion printing in an array of structure geometries based on geometric .stl data and user defined grid spacing parameters.

4b: A batch of co-axial extrusion tips, before final finishing and polishing, produced in Stainless Steel 316L with a Realizer SLM50™ operating with layer slice thickness of 25μm

Using a commercially available ink-jet printer from Dimatix™ and a customised ink using organic conducting polymer nano-particles, we have printed features as small as 20 µm that have been used as bionic guidance tracks to control the direction of nerve growth[3]. Another addition to our printing armoury is a custom built multi-head ink-jet printer that allows printing of multiple components to create new material structures during fabrication, so called reactive printing, wherein the individual components react to form a more mechanically robust structure. For example, this has been used to form biopolymer hydrogel structures that are ionically cross-linked during printing.

With minimal modification, we have also found these print heads to be useful in allowing for the effective delivery of living cells during the printing process; delivering both nerve and muscle cells to create unique biofunctional structures. The cells are maintained using a biopolymer suspension with optimised rheological properties that enable effective delivery through the ink-jet head. The formulation used is multi-purpose and multi-functional, in that it maintains the cells in a healthy state in suspension for many hours, protects cells during delivery and sustains cell viability after printing [4].

AdBioFab – Changing the way we teach, commercialise and do research

After a number of decades wherein advances in materials science have often been limited by our inability to fabricate effectively, we have now entered a new era. Biomaterials researchers have been empowered with the ability to fabricate customised structures using hardware that can be accommodated in most research laboratories at reasonable cost.

The convergence of advances in biomaterials, AdBioFab, Information technology, Nano technology and Bio technology is set to move us forward in biomedical science at an unprecedented rate. Our ability to convert data into knowledge and to effectively disseminate that knowledge has been outrun by our ability to create the primary data!

The knowledge dissemination gap continues to grow wider and this has implications for:

•  Schools and Universities: those responsible for skilling the next generation of researchers.
•  Regulatory authorities: who require information and an understanding of the implications of advances occurring on a number of technological fronts simultaneously.
•  The commercialisation sector: these advances are challenging traditional commercialisation models that are based on mass-manufacturing / cost reduction / sales targets. With additive biofabrication, localised manufacture using exotic materials will deliver the most effective solutions.
•  The community: social acceptance of advances in the medical sector is obviously critical to success. We must develop innovative approaches to present understandable chunks of knowledge.

Now we in materials science can be bold, even audacious. We can develop materials not amenable to current processing and fabrication approaches with the knowledge that we can print-printers; creating the fabrication machinery of the future in tandem with breakthroughs in materials science!

Advances in AdBioFab will have a staggering impact because it not only accelerates the thought-to-thing process, delivering practical solutions sooner, but it also empowers us to make unprecedented fundamental advances. For example, the ability to arrange living cells in 3D within naturally occurring or synthetic biomaterial structures will give insights into environmental effects on cell behaviour – insights hitherto unavailable.

Acknowledgements

The establishment of Additive Biofabrication capabilities in Wollongong has been made possible through the support of the Australian Federal Governments EIF program in providing a processing and devices fabrication facility. Equipment has been made available through EIF as well as the Australian National Fabrication Facility (ANFF) via the Australian Federal Governments NCRIS program. Personnel and personnel support has been provided through the NSW State Government Science Leveraging Fund and the ANFF.

References

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[1] Wallace, G.G., Moulton, S.E., Higgins, M.J., Kapsa, R.M.I. “Organic Bionics” Wiley-VCH Verlag & Co. KGaA, Boschstr. 12, 69469 Weinheim, Germany 2012.

[2] Cornock, R., Honours thesis, University of Wollongong 2012.

[3] Weng, B., Liu, X., Higgins, M.J., Shepherd, R., Wallace, G. “Fabrication and Characterization of Cytocompatible Polypyrrole Films Inkjet Printed from Nanoformulations Cytocompatible, Inkjet-Printed Polypyrrole Films” Small 2011, 7 (24), 3434-3438.

[4] Ferris, C.J., Gilmore, K.J., Beirne, S., McCallum, D., Wallace, G.G., in het Panhuis, M. “Bio-ink for on-demand printing of living cells” Biomaterials Science, 2013, 1, 224-230.

Obama inauguration speech: a historic moment for gay and lesbian equality

Written by Marcus O’Donnell, Lecturer, Program Convenor Journalism at the University of Wollongong.

Obama wove the story of gay rights into the language of America’s founding fathers during his inauguration speech. EPA/Shawn Thew

 

Much has been made of the fact President Obama became the first president to mention the word gay in an inaugural address. But the significance lies not in what he said but how he said it.

In declaring, “Our journey is not complete until our gay brothers and sisters are treated like anyone else under the law” Obama not only declared himself abstractly for “gay rights”, he placed these rights at the heart of the central ideals of the American story.

Obama’s whole speech sprung from his reiteration of the much sung hymn to equality from the Declaration of Independence which he quoted at the start of his speech: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness”. Presidents and other American orators are fond of quoting this lodestone of the American dream, so it is not surprise that Obama should refer to it.

But his speech was much more telling because he made clear that he took those words as a call to action: “For history tells us that while these truths maybe self-evident, they have never been self-executing; that while freedom is a gift from God, it must be secured by His people here on Earth”.

Again, a rousing call to act for freedom and equality is common place in the American presidential tradition. Obama’s distinctive play on this came with his declaration that securing equality and freedom entailed both a steadfast commitment to the founding father’s vision and embracing intelligent changes in the light of contemporary challenges. “But we have always understood that when times change, so must we; that fidelity to our founding principles requires new responses to new challenges; that preserving our individual freedoms ultimately requires collective action”.

Obama’s riff on gay and lesbian rights then begins in a very specific way which very skillfully links it to both adaptation to new challenges and collective action: “We, the people, declare today that the most evident of truths – that all of us are created equal – is the star that guides us still; just as it guided our forebears through Seneca Falls, and Selma, and Stonewall; just as it guided all those men and women, sung and unsung, who left footprints along this great Mall, to hear a preacher say that we cannot walk alone; to hear a King proclaim that our individual freedom is inextricably bound to the freedom of every soul on Earth”.

In this extraordinary declaration, Obama not only declares that adapting to, and fighting for, gay and lesbian rights is important, but that the fight for these rights, which stems from the 1969 Stonewall riots, should be placed on the same footing as the fight for women’s rights at Seneca Falls and the fight for racial equality at Selma. Here the president effectively placed the fight for gay and lesbian rights within the myth of the ongoing American revolution.

This leads to an explicit call for gay and lesbian equality in the next paragraph: “Our journey is not complete until our gay brothers and sisters are treated like anyone else under the law – for if we are truly created equal, then surely the love we commit to one another must be equal as well”.

Obama goes further here than any of his predecessors would have dared. This is not just a call for equality under the law, it is a carefully phrased call for same sex marriage: “the love we commit to one another must be equal as well”.

Obama has recently declared his support for same sex marriage, so this is not a new statement. But his inclusion of such a statement in an inaugural address, a key ritual moment of American democracy, and his inclusion of this declaration in the context of the fight for women’s and civil rights marks yet another milestone in the story of gay and lesbian citizenship.

The fight for marriage equality faces several key tests in the US this year, the most significant of which are the cases before the Supreme Court about the constitutionality of the Defense of Marriage Act and California’s Proposition 8, both of which define marriage as exclusively between a man and a woman.

One of the ongoing pressure points in American public debate has been around so called “judicial-activism” on social issues. In opposing such “activism” conservative legal scholars often adhere to a doctrine called “originalism”, which proclaims that any constitutional judgement must aim to get as close as possible to the original meaning of the words of the founding fathers when interpreting the constitution.

In this carefully crafted speech, Obama not only laid a claim for gay and lesbian equality and same sex marriage; he was laying a claim that any constitutional value of equality does not have an original or fundamentalist meaning, rather one that constantly evolves.

This is fundamentally at odds with our own Prime Minister Julia Gillard, who appeals to the importance of tradition and “heritage” in her own refusal to acknowledge the marriage rights of gay and lesbian Australians.

Traditions only continue to have meaning when they are reinterpreted and made relevant by each generation. Obama’s inauguration speech was an inspiring attempt to do this. Let’s hope his actions over the next four years are equally inspiring.

Originally posted on The Conversation

Four visions, three dimensions: the future of 3D printing

By Thomas Birtchnell, Lecturer in Social Sciences, Media and Communication at University of Wollongong, and Professor John Urry, Department of Sociology at Lancaster University.

Originally posted on The Conversation

 

Chances are you’ve heard about 3D printing – or additive manufacturing as it’s otherwise known: a process that turns computer-aided designs into three-dimensional, real-world objects with a range of uses, from a range of materials and on a range of scales.

But you’ve probably heard little in terms of the social impact that 3D printing and its associated technologies will likely have.

Those possible impacts are exactly what we’re investigating at Lancaster University and the University of Wollongong. We’ve identified four potential scenarios that could eventuate in a world that embraces 3D printing and, crucially, how those scenarios could affect everyday life.

Where we’re at

Walking around the 3D Printshow 2012 in London last month, the hype around 3D printing technology was palpable.

The first stall in view was MakerBot’s, and the company’s CEO and founder Bre Pettis was busy spruiking their Replicator 2 – Time Magazine’s Best Invention of 2012.

But it was in the other stalls out the back, populated by artists, entrepreneurs and researchers, where this innovation could be seen doing really interesting things.

In those stalls there were different intimations of the futures we have imagined in our project at Lancaster University.

In one corner there were a couple of children playing the game Minecraft. Their mother explained that they were actually creating 3D designs within the game (in between foraging for food and fighting spiders).

The game players design objects from cube-shaped blocks in the same way they might design in-game houses and caves.

A clever piece of software called Printcraft uploads designs made in Minecraft to a server, which automatically converts the designs into 3D-printable files. Then the player simply prints the design out on an adjacent 3D printer, in this case a MakerBot.

At another company’s stall a salesperson (the inventor was her dad) claimed her printer could print different colours at the same time – something that hasn’t been possible with 3D printers until now.

 Next to this one there was a 3D printer with a handle so it could be carried around – both printers drew on the open-source Reprap design.

An adjacent stall was a bit different in that it didn’t feature 3D printers. Instead, a team of designers and marketing gurus offered their 3D printing expertise for small product runs and trial inventions.

Further along there was a scale model of the Urbee 3D-printed car. There was also a chain-mail shirt made of tiny steel links, amazingly assembled by an expensive laser sintering printer.

And most impressively there was a row of 3D-printed mummified animals from an archaeological project rendered in near-perfect detail down to the bandages, as per the photo below:

Where we’re going

Our research has seen us explore four different social futures around 3D printing.

They were shaped by how corporate this new industrial revolution will be and how much individuals will engage with the technology. In particular we were interested in how 3D printing might influence the transportation of objects and the travel of people.

In order to find out what futures might be, where 3D printing has significance (or not), we held a workshop with the Futures Company in London, and picked the brains of engineers, consultants, policymakers and designers. The four possible futures are below:

1. Home factories

Everyone has a 3D printer in their home sitting next to their paper printer and making plastic jewellery, kitchen utensils, toys, models, homework projects and non-critical replacement parts.

People in this future no longer derive as much satisfaction from shopping in the high street for cheap products and are printing much more “stuff”, mostly made of plastic or resin.

2. Print shops

Manufacturing has “returned” to places such as the UK, the US and Australia.

Companies are integrating high-end 3D printers that print all sorts of exotic materials – from steel and titanium to sandstone and carbon fibre – into their supply chains and retail outlets.

As a result there are efficiency gains in how objects are transported and where they are made. Aeroplane parts and car dashboards, for instance, are made locally and customised to order.

3. Fab labs

Groups of people work together on not-for-profit or subsidised printers provided with support services and technicians.

The main focus is not new markets but rather new communities that craft objects they intend to use for recreation or for trading and selling in specialist “maker fairs”.

These communities hinge on open-source technologies and co-production ethics, and generally people are still relying on a global production system for much of what they need.

4. The 3D bubble

The market bubble has burst as inflated expectations have caused 3D printing to be severely over-hyped.

Many small entrepreneurs have gone bust and multinational corporations have not renewed their product lines. Consumers are dissatisfied with the appearance and unreliability of 3D-printed objects and design software is too complicated to master.

In this fourth future, 3D printing is still being used by specialists for prototyping, preservation of collections and high-end bespoke accessories.

 

 Will any of these futures happen? As always, time will tell. But we should be discussing the potential social impacts now, before the future arrives.

In the meantime, as the 3D Printshow 2012 ably demonstrated, there are already many exciting and inspiring uses of this technology.

Can we fix the damage caused by workplace bullying?

By Diana Kelly, University of Wollongong

Associate Professor Di Kelly, School of History and Politics at UOW

For more than a decade I have been researching aspects of workplace bullying – that widespread and scurrilous set of activities where those in power (about 75% of perpetrators are managers and supervisors) attack, demean, demand or destroy their subordinates.

It occurs often enough that it is deemed costly, although academic assessments of employees experiencing bullying vary from 5% to over 50% in the last year.

Workplace bullying is not new – Dickens offers some excellent examples of bullying, but it has become more widespread and more insidious in recent decades – perhaps reflecting changes in management practices and managerial prerogative, larger workplaces and greater pressures on labour productivity.

Over those ten years of gathering data and surveying workplace bullying, I have all the while held hopes of completing a scholarly and useful research project called “Workplace Bullying – Fight, Flight or Fix?”

I dreamt of doing research which would show how bully targets had dealt with bullying – not been damaged or destroyed. The trouble has been, that in my informal research for setting up this project, I have found almost no good examples of “FIX” – no legislation, policies, processes, or interventions that might offer exemplars to remedy instances of workplace bullying and make bloody sure it doesn’t happen again.

No – almost none – and while my file of articles on workplace bullying over the last 10-12 years is more than two feet high, real examples of FIX are almost non-existent. Like a Greek chorus chanting the progress of a tragedy, those hundreds of paradigms of excellent research, measure, survey and describe workplace bullying in many occupations, sectors and organisations, exploring the causes, consequences, targets, perpetrators and bystanders in workplace bullying – but almost never a FIX.

And yet – and yet … surely there are answers – aren’t there?

Certainly, there is no end of concern about workplace bullying. Not just the Greek chorus of we, the academic researchers, but also clinical and organisational psychologists, management theorists, businesses, trade unions, and governments. Bullying is an anathema to the fair minded and efficiency oriented, and yet it seems to grow in incidence and impact.

The Australian government wants to investigate the incidence of bullying and the scope for government intervention in its Inquiry into Workplace Bullying, amidst a push to extend Victoria’s so-called Brodie’s Law nationally.

Inquiry submissions closed last week and national tours of the Committee will take place in July. (Trouble is – they are only going to major cities – yet workplace bullying is a country issue too, as the death of a country Ambulance service employee demonstrated.)

Nevertheless, this is a good initiative – if it can follow through on its findings and if it one of many initiatives – but workplace bullying is hard to diagnose and even more difficult to “cure”. In the UK, the outstanding Labour peer, Baroness Anne Gibson was nearly successful in the late 1990s in getting a Dignity at Work Bill through the British parliament. Of course it failed ultimately – workplace bullying is widespread but it is too diffuse and there are no discernible blocs of voters among the bullied to compel the uncaring. What Baroness Gibson did achieve was a million pound float of the Dignity at Work project and even a National Dignity at Work Day – November 5.

But still bullying is a major issue in the UK. Even if there had been legislation, there would need to be many more initiatives to combat and confound workplace bullying. A multi-faceted problem needs multi-faceted responses. And it needs to start at the level of the organisation and the workplace – and start from the very top of the organisation.

As a great NSW Board of Anti-Discrimination President used to say – “the fish rots from the head” – and workplace bullying – like discrimination and occupational health and safety – are only addressed in the organisation when the board of directors and senior executive are committed to good practice.

This is perhaps even more so with workplace bullying – the Greek chorus of researchers have found that organisational culture and socialisation practices and processes are major determinants of bullying. Improve the culture, make bullying and harassment as grievous as damage and destruction of physical property, and the bullying may decline, just as many forms of discrimination have declined in recent decades.

So it makes sense to start with the most senior leaders – but it is a vexed solution too. As the researchers have also found, those same managers are driven more by fear of litigation and the will to power. From such perspectives, even the merest hints of bullying must be hidden, the bullied targets swept aside or out of the frame altogether, for litigation not only brings costs but it also damages organisational reputations. For many, such concerns are much more important than fairness and human dignity at work – and with increased competitive pressures and the strengthening of managerial prerogative in recent years, imperatives of senior leaders are unlikely to change.

The government’s inquiry into workplace bullying is a good initiative; but I fear that it rather than find any answers, any FIX initiatives, it will just join the Greek chorus telling yet again the rise and rise of workplace bullying.

Diana Kelly does not work for, consult to, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has no relevant affiliations.

This article was originally published at The Conversation.
Read the original article.

Clinical research a no-brainer

By Dr Heath Ecroyd

Dr Heath Ecroyd – Illawarra Health and Medical Research Institute, UOW.

Dr Ecroyd is an Australian Research Council Future Fellow in the School of Biological Sciences at the University of Wollongong and a group leader at the Illawarra Health and Medical Research Institute.

Let’s start with the good news. The census data released on 21 June 2012 shows that Australians are living longer than ever and that death rates from heart attacks and some kinds of cancer are falling.

However, our increasing life span comes at a cost. Indeed, if you live long enough, it is very likely that you will experience some kind of neurodegenerative disorder which may be a form of mild dementia or something more serious like Alzheimer’s disease.

Current figures suggest that over 260,000 Australians already suffer dementia, with some predicting that this figure will grow to one million by 2050.

Unfortunately, the Illawarra is likely to become a hotspot for these kinds of diseases as we already have a higher proportion of people aged 85 years and over (16 per cent) than the NSW average (14 per cent) and, by 2021, it is predicted that the population aged 70-84 years will increase by 45 per cent, while the 85 years and over group will more than double.

It doesn’t take a mathematical genius to see that we are likely to be in for a bit of a rough ride when it comes to neurodegenerative disorders; especially when you consider that current treatments for these diseases are based on alleviating the symptoms, rather than treating the cause.

As health “consumers”, Illawarra residents probably imagine that scientists around the world are working hard on understanding these diseases and seeking cures – and they are.

What many may not realise, however, is that right here in the Illawarra, there is a growing group of researchers who are also trying to piece together the puzzle about the causes of neurodegeneration – a term we use to describe the progressive loss of function and eventual death of neurons.

Based at the Illawarra Health and Medical Research Institute (IHMRI) and the University of Wollongong, we all have slightly different views on how to piece the puzzle together, but what we all share is a focus on the fundamental science behind these diseases. What that means is that we are focused on understanding the cause. By doing so, we hope that we can one day discover a cure.

My area of interest is the role that proteins play in diseases such as Parkinson’s disease.

As we get older, the proteins in our body can start to lose their shape and, because of this, they start to malfunction and form clumps that sit in the brain and cause disease. These clumps are the telltale signs of many neurodegenerative diseases, including Parkinson’s.

Our current thinking is that, if you can stop the clumping, you can stop the onset of the disease. A number of clinical trials are now being conducted internationally on drugs that do exactly this – which means we are on the right track.

Normally, our body has systems in place to prevent this clumping but, as we age, these too do not work like they used to, making us more vulnerable to disease. The focus of my work is discovering how we can boost the activity of these systems in order to stop those clumps forming in the first place.

While a cure may still be a way off, the fact that we have people working in this area and access to state-of-the-art facilities in the Illawarra means that we have just as much of a chance to finding a solution than any other lab or scientist.

In fact, we are attracting more funding and more talented researchers to Wollongong. In November this year we will host a major conference focused on these diseases and what causes them. It has attracted some of the best national and international researchers, giving us the opportunity to hear the latest results from leading labs around the world as well as highlighting the great work we are doing here at IHMRI.

I feel it is important to promote what we do as it is the Australian tax payer who ultimately funds our work and we want to show that that money is being put to good use.

Australia’s rich talk about saving the environment; the poor bear the burden of doing it

By Lesley Head, University of Wollongong

Public housing tenants struggling with their bills will well understand NSW Community Services Minister Goward’s concern over the rising costs of nails and pots of paint. According to the minister, the carbon tax will push the price of household maintenance up; this is the reasoning behind an increase in public housing rents. But what’s fair about the state government passing its own carbon tax costs on to those least able to afford it?

To make matters worse, Ms Goward also announced that the imminent carbon tax compensation payments from the federal government will be included as part of a tenant’s assessable income. The state government may just be trying to score cheap points off the feds. But we should all be concerned about the social justice implications of framing the debate in this way.

For a start, more of the electricity price hikes are coming from infrastructure costs than from the carbon tax. A particular bottleneck and driver of change is the summer peak demand for air-conditioning, which low income households are less likely to use. All households are feeling the impact of increased electricity prices, but the pinch is disproportionately tighter if you are poor.

The same goes for the carbon tax. There is no cost-free way to make the necessary transition to lower greenhouse gas emissions. But as a community we need to find fairer ways to share these costs.

We also need to share the work. If you are economically comfortable and well educated, and think you are already carrying an extra burden, think again. Research shows clearly that the poor are doing the heavy lifting on a range of sustainability issues.

Our survey research shows that households earning less than $250 per week are statistically more likely to undertake sustainable household practices. They switch off lights in unoccupied rooms and put on extra layers of clothing before turning up the heating. They are more likely to repair than replace clothing. They are less likely to use an air-conditioner in summer, and much more likely to save water by taking shorter showers.

Not all such households profess “green” attitudes or sensibilities. And the poorest households were most likely to be “uninterested” in climate change as an issue. Ethnographic research throws light on this apparent conundrum. Often they are influenced instead by generational or socioeconomic backgrounds of frugality and thrift. They hate waste, and have many creative ways to save and reuse materials and stuff.

In contrast, households earning over $1700 per week are over-represented in the group undertaking fewer sustainable practices. Affluent well-educated households are more likely to profess pro-environmental attitudes, but their high levels of consumption make practical sustainability more difficult for them. They are more likely to own two or more fridges, and plasma screen TVs. Baby boomers are the least likely to be sceptical about climate change, but the most likely to fly often.

We are used to thinking about this in an international context; for example, comparing per capita emissions between Australia (high) and China (low). We are less inclined to acknowledge that there are also substantial disparities between Australian households.

The poor – particularly the elderly – are also more vulnerable to the impacts of climate change. They suffer heat stress in summer, and have to make hard choices between heating and eating in winter.

Most of us know people with cupboards or garages full of things that “might come in handy”. They might be Grandma, or the old guy next door. They are not all poor, and I am not suggesting we should celebrate their poverty. Rather, these unheralded vernacular practices – honed in diverse socioeconomic, generational and ethnic circumstances – provide cultural resources that we should acknowledge and draw on. We should celebrate their contribution towards helping us think about how to do things differently.

There are no easy answers here, but a double whammy for public housing tenants is surely not one of them. If the state government decreases tenant resilience by passing on the increased costs, they will end up paying more elsewhere, for example in the health budget.

We are all in this together, and need to find ways to share both the costs and the work of responding to climate change. We certainly should not be putting extra costs on that segment of the community who are already doing more than their share of the work.

Lesley Head receives funding from the Australian Research Council.

This article was originally published at The Conversation.
Read the original article.

We can’t compete on cheap and nasty; let’s be a country that makes high-quality, lasting things

By Chris Gibson, Professor of Human Geography at UOW.
Orginally published on The Conversation.

Embracing an Australia that makes things doesn’t mean taking backwards steps. Photo: Pizzodisevo/Flickr

When BlueScope Steel announced in August 2011 it was about to close one of its Port Kembla blast furnaces and cease steel exports, Australian Workers’ Union national secretary Paul Howes asked, “do we want to be a country that still makes things? Do we want to value-add to our natural resources, or do we want to become just one big sandpit for China?”

Australia should think positively of its future as a country that makes things. Exactly what things we make, and how we make them, is the difficult part of the equation.

Making things does not necessarily require backwards steps to a protectionist era when import tariffs meant artificially cheap Australian fridges, shoes or cars. But nor is making things in Australia necessarily dependent on competing with low wages in China or India for “bread and butter” manufacturing. That presumes we join in the “race to the bottom” through cheapening labour and relaxing environmental standards. Judging by the spectacular failure of Howard’s WorkChoices in 2007, Australians won’t accept cuts in wages and conditions in the name of global competitiveness (and in any case our reserve army of labour is just too small). Likewise, although cynicism towards Federal Government policies on climate change is at an all-time high, Australians care deeply about the environment (especially our beaches, national parks, air and water quality) and won’t accept deterioration in how industrial waste is handled simply so things can be made more cheaply.

So, in the face of seemingly impossible competition abroad, the question is whether it is worthwhile making things here in Australia at all?

The Sydney Morning Herald’s economics commentator, Ross Gittins, seems to think not. Gittins editorialised in August last year that the decline in manufacturing in Australia was part of an inevitable and permanent transition, a “historic shift in the structure of the global economy as the Industrial Revolution finally reaches the developing countries”. Rich countries such as Australia must now find other things to do to replace manufacturing. We can dig up resources to supply manufacturers in China. We can focus on the so-called “knowledge” industries (where a product’s value is in its intellectual or design content, not its material fabrication). We can export “know-how” rather than physical commodities.

‘Outsiders and Ratbags’: the Greens will struggle without Bob Brown

By Gregory Melleuish

Associate Professor, School of History and Politics at UOW

This article was originally published at The Conversation.
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Bob Brown says The Greens could form a future government, but they may have peaked already. AAP/Lukas Coch

The exit of Bob Brown raises an interesting issue for the Australian Greens. Now the party’s charismatic founder has gone, what will happen to the party? Does it have a long-term future, and if so, what kind of future?

There has long been a place in Australian politics for one minor party, that acts as a safety valve for those who are not happy with the state of politics. But that party does not have to be the Greens. If political circumstances change and another charismatic figure emerges a new party could well emerge to challenge the Greens for this role.

Three party politics

The Democrats became the first of these third parties in 1977. They had their heyday in the early years of the Howard government. For a time, it seemed possible that One Nation would also assume that role. But in past few years this role has been taken over by the Greens.

All of these parties were founded by a charismatic leader – Don Chipp for the Democrats and Pauline Hanson for One Nation – and came to be associated with that leader. This may partially explain why both the Democrats and One Nation are no longer significant political players.

All of these parties share an old-fashioned form of economic nationalism in which the state plays an important role. They have appealed to a particular constituency which feels that the two major parties are not really serving their interests, and that politics has failed them.

One could argue that what caused the emergence of third parties, and has sustained them, was Bob Hawke’s post-1983 economic reform, supported by both the major political parties, which sought to make Australia a more competitive and productive country.

Hence the desire, manifested in their economic nationalism, of minor parties to return to the “good old days”.

A limited appeal

The Greens are both the environmental party and the party of the big state and increased government control. This can be seen in many of their policies, for example their policies on education.

Their appeal is necessarily limited because the sort of constituency that they attract are those who do not like politics as practised by the major parties. They are the natural home for outsiders and ratbags. In this sense they are an “anti-political” political party.

This means that their appeal cannot rise much beyond 15% of the electorate. Hence they are very attractive to many young people who have problems with the major parties, and who do not yet feel that they are part of the political system. Green policies on education, that students should pay less and the state pay more, are attractive to this group. The Greens also appeal to academics who also feel somewhat alienated by the political system.

The end of the Greens?

One thing, I believe, is certain. The Greens will not become a major party unless they cease to be the Greens.

Major parties have to appeal to the broader Australian community and there is no indication that the Greens are capable of evolving in this way. What Bob Brown achieved was to make the Greens the unchallenged third player in Australian politics. It was a considerable achievement.

But they have now reached their peak. My feeling is that the best they can do is to maintain their level of support. However, the case of the Democrats may indicate that once the minor party in Australia peaks, the fact that it cannot go any further may be a sign of its ultimate decay.

Whatever the case there is no doubt that the Greens will miss Bob’s charisma.

This article was originally published at The Conversation.
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