Three neuroscience researchers are among 37 new Fellows elected to the Australian Academy of Health and Medical Sciences  in recognition of their outstanding contributions to health and medical research.

Professors Shijit Kapur, Lynne Bilston and Louisa Jorm and were elected to the Academy because “they have had a significant impact on the health and wellbeing of Australians and the world,” said the Academy’s President, Professor Ian Frazer.

‘We work with our Fellows to strengthen the health and medical research landscape in Australia. It is thanks to their expertise that we can play a valuable role in ensuring that Australia continues to address some of the world’s most pressing health challenges.”

Professor Kapur is Dean of the Faculty of Medicine Dentistry and Health Sciences and Assistant Vice-Chancellor (Health) at the University of Melbourne. He was previously head of  the ‘Maudsley’ Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience (loPPN) in London where his research interests in were in schizophrenia, neuroscience and brain imaging.

Professor Bilston is Conjoint Professor, Neuroscience Research Australia (NEURA). She is a biomedical engineer who began her research career looking at spinal cord injury and has developed several new MR imaging methods to measure tissue stiffness (MR elastography) and muscle motion (MR tagging) to the upper airway, She is currently leading examining upper airway muscle ‘neuromechanics’ using these techniques.

Professor Louisa Jorm is the Foundation Director of Centre for Big Data Research in Health, University of New South Wales. She is an epidemiologist who has worked on studies of risks and impact of cognitive impairment. She is co-investigator in the Maintain Your Brain (MYB) trial of online interventions designed to target modifiable risk factors for Alzheimer’s disease and dementia.

The Academy is a not-for-profit independent body set up in 2014 by a panel of eminent senior health and medical scientists, chaired by Professor Richard Larkins, and which included Professor Fiona Wood and Professor Ian Frazer, under the patronage of Professor Sir Gustav Nossal.

Its aims are to provide independent advice to government and the community on issues relating to evidence-based medical practice and medical researchers; provide a forum for discussion on progress on medical research with an emphasis on translation of research into practice and to provide mentoring to younger researchers

The election brings the Academy’s total Fellowship to 357.