A message from the Associate Dean Innovation and Enterprise
Welcome to the Faculty of Medicine, Dentistry and Health Sciences website for Innovation and Enterprise. This is the landing page for your exciting journey that takes you from discovery to translation and beyond. Here you will find the resources and connections that will help your ideas create societal impact through enterprise and commercialisation, sustainable social benefit or equipping our 21st century health researchers and professionals with enduring leadership skills through innovations in teaching and training.
The role of the Office of Innovation and Enterprise is to drive a mindset of innovation amongst all our students and staff. In pursuing the best outcomes for our patients and the community, we aim to uncover better ways to face 21st century challenges, strive for evidence-based and effective solutions that bring value to our community, our university and ourselves. Our multi-talented teams will provide you with the skillsets that will help you navigate and thrive in the world of academia and enterprise as you carry your ideas forward. Finally, we will gather around you the necessary tools to successfully translate your ideas from results to strategies of care, products and policies that will benefit Australia and the globe.
As a Faculty resource, we will engage with all our schools and seek your representation and contribution to ensure that the framework of innovation and enterprise meets the needs and imperatives of our broad and highly talented academic community. We shall grow collaborations across the university and outside to create a landscape that will enable our researchers to connect their work to partners who may help to accelerate their impact to where it matters the most - society.
We always welcome your suggestions of how we can do better and I invite you to reach out to help make our role in Innovation and Enterprise meaningful.
Professor Peter Choong AO
Associate Dean Innovation and Enterprise, Faculty of Medicine, Dentistry and Health Sciences
Head of the Department of Surgery, Melbourne Medical School
Sir Hugh Devine Professor of Surgery, St Vincent's Hospital Melbourne
Meet the Innovation and Enterprise Directorate
Associate Professor Lauren Ayton
Associate Professor Lauren Ayton is the Director of Program Delivery and Industry Engagement for the Faculty of Medicine, Dentistry and Health Sciences. She is a Principal Investigator at both the University of Melbourne and the Centre for Eye Research Australia.
Professor Buzz Palmer
Professor Buzz Palmer is one of Australia’s most prominent voices in health entrepreneurship and medical technology innovation. He co-founded the MedTech Actuator in 2018, and is strongly involved in a number of venture capital and technology or product development initiatives.
Meet the Innovation and Enterprise Steering Committee
Including members from faculty and school leadership, the Steering Committee is responsible for implementation of the faculty's innovation and enterprise agenda.
Associate Professor Lauren Ayton
Associate Professor Lauren Ayton is the Director of Program Delivery and Industry Engagement for the Faculty of Medicine, Dentistry and Health Sciences. She is a Principal Investigator at both the University of Melbourne and the Centre for Eye Research Australia.
Professor Buzz Palmer
Professor Buzz Palmer is one of Australia’s most prominent voices in health entrepreneurship and medical technology innovation. He co-founded the MedTech Actuator in 2018, and is strongly involved in a number of venture capital and technology or product development initiatives.
Dr Ruth Park-Jones
Dr Ruth Park-Jones is the Business Development Director and Cluster Lead for MDHS working with an experienced and dedicated team of research translation specialists in the MDHS BD team to support academics as they translate their research discoveries to achieve impact.
Dr Tami Yap
Tami has been involved in teaching at Melbourne Dental School since 2008. Tami completed a Bachelor of Dental Science with Honours at Melbourne University in 2006 and became a Fellow of the Royal Australasian College of Dental Surgeons by examination in 2013.
Professor Frédéric Hollande
Fred is Deputy Head at the Dept of Clinical Pathology and works at the University of Melbourne Centre for Cancer Research, located within the Victorian Comprehensive Cancer Centre (VCCC). He obtained his PhD in 1994 from the University of Montpellier, France, then worked as a post-doctoral research fellow at the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research and the University of Melbourne (94-96). He was recruited as a CNRS Research Fellow in France in 1996 to study molecular mechanisms that underlie the progression of colon cancer.
Associate Professor Laura Downie
Laura Downie is a clinician scientist who has gained international recognition for research excellence in ocular disease, with awards, highly cited papers, patents, international speaking engagements and appointments to key professional bodies. She is a Professor and an inaugural Dame Kate Campbell Fellow in the Department of Optometry and Vision Sciences in the Faculty of Medicine, Dentistry and Health Sciences.
Professor Adam Elshaug
Adam Elshaug, B.A., B.Sc. (Hons), M.P.H., Ph.D., is a researcher and policy advisor specialising in measuring and reducing waste (e.g. low-value care) to optimise value in health care, an area in which he has developed novel, award winning methods utilising administrative health data. At the University of Melbourne he is Professor in Health Policy with joint appointments in the Melbourne School of Population and Global Health (MSPGH) and Melbourne Medical School, and is Director, Centre for Health Policy (MSPGH), home to over 80 staff.
Professor Simon Dennis
Professor Simon Dennis is the Director of the Complex Human Data Hub (CHDH) in the Melbourne School of Psychological Sciences. The primary aim of the CHDH is to develop Computational Behavioural Science – bringing computational methods to bear on big data to better understand psychological processes.
Professor Sammy Bedoui
Professor Sammy Bedoui has a medical degree from the Hannover Medical School in Germany and heads a laboratory in the Department of Microbiology and Immunology. Sammy’s research examines how dendritic cells and T cells interact during infections, with a particular interest in deciphering how specific innate signals shape these interactions.
Dr Kevin Lee
Kevin Lee is a research fellow at the Department of Medicine, University of Melbourne in the Royal Melbourne Hospital. He obtained his PhD in 2015 from the University of Melbourne.
Dr George Taiaroa
Dr George Taiaroa is a Research Fellow at the Department of Infectious Diseases, University of Melbourne. George's research focuses on communicable diseases. He has previously completed a Doctor of Philosophy and Biochemistry at the University of Otago in New Zealand.