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| Lachlan McMillan |
School of Clinical Sciences at Monash Health PhD student Lachlan McMillan has received a competitive grant to attend the prestigious Stanford SPARK Biomedical Innovation and Entrepreneurship Course in Tokyo this August.
Established ten years ago and a unique partnership between university and industry, the Stanford SPARK program aims to advance new biomedical research discoveries into promising new treatments for patients.
Lachlan’s PhD is focused on improving bone health in older adults.
“There is currently a crisis in the treatment of osteoporosis, with prescription and adherence to pharmacological regimes at an all-time low,” Lachlan said.
“As such it's imperative we understand how else to best influence bones, in the goal of preventing or attenuating the development of osteoporosis.”
Lachlan is developing a wearable device that will accurately and objectively quantify activity which is most beneficial for bones, i.e. weight-bearing activity such as jumping or hopping.
“We ultimately hope to deploy our device to research institutions around the world who are investigating the effect of physical activity on a range of outcomes, delivering a commercial result.”
Some of the benefits Lachlan hopes to gain from the SPARK program include a much greater understanding of innovation and development in medical technology in fields outside his area of research.
“I hope that I'll get a better understanding of the key medical problems currently being addressed, and how the process works,” Lachlan said.
“I also expect that networking with researchers and medical innovation experts from all over the world will provide me with a unique opportunity to learn from people with varied backgrounds, hopefully leading to future cross-institutional collaborations.”