Julian Elliot awarded for innovative research
Every day, around 4000 medical research papers are published across the world. Associate Professor Julian Elliot has devised a unique strategy to help combat the 'data deluge'.
A/Prof Elliot, who is an HIV physician at The Alfred and a researcher at Monash University and Cochrane Australia, this year received the prestigious Commonwealth Health Minister’s Award for Excellence in Health and Medical Research.
This annual award recognises the top-ranked Career Development Fellowship (CDF) applicant through the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC).
Using this funding, A/Prof Elliot and his team will be able to continue their innovative work developing new systems to analyse and simplify medical research.
This includes online platforms, artificial intelligence and the ‘citizen science’ website - where members of the public help process research articles. With more than 5000 members, the ‘Cochrane Crowd’ platform has demonstrated that with appropriate training, members of the public can accurately classify scientific research papers.
A/Prof Elliot said there was often a lot of contest among research papers and his system helped to make sense of that.
"‘Doing research is not enough. We also need to make sure the findings of research translate into action and improved health—but there is now so much research it is hard for anyone to make sense of this “data deluge”,’ A/Prof Elliot said.
"As an HIV physician at the Alfred Hospital I know the challenges of delivering health care that is based on the best possible research evidence.
"Using new technologies and ways of collaborating we are working to make that easier. My previous research shows it is possible to use the power of motivated communities to speed up science and I hope to build on this through my Fellowship."
CDFs are highly competitive four-year fellowships and support outstanding early- to mid-career health and medical researchers. A/Prof Elliot joins an esteemed list of previous winners including Professor Robyn Ward, Professor Josephine Forbes, Professor Anton Peleg and 2016 winner Dr Joseph Powell. He also receives an additional $50,000 research grant on top of his CDF funding.
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