2015 Best postgraduate student paper

1 February 2016

Congratulations to Xian (Phoebe) Zhou and Chris McKeon, NICM's 2015 recipients of the Best Postgraduate Student Paper Award.

Phoebe's paper undertook a comparison of the herbal root and rhizome of Panax notogineseng in raw and granular forms using two standard industry methods for assessing quality control of herbal products. Comparison of the two methods using thin layer chromatography (TLC) and ultra-performance liquid chromatography with photodiode array detection (UPLC) was undertaken using multivariate analysis. UPLC was found to be more efficient than TLC.

Chris' paper focused on examining the feasibility of conducting a randomised controlled trial of electro-acupuncture for treating chemotherapy induced nausea and vomiting. These symptoms are described as highly distressing by patients undergoing chemotherapy, and continue to be a concern despite new medications. Sixty patients participated in the study. Chris found the patients' experience of these symptoms was generally low during the first cycle of chemotherapy, therefore it was unclear if electro-acupuncture improves symptoms at this point in treatment. . His study did highlight recruitment to the trial was feasible, the preferred scale to measure nausea was identified, and adverse events from electro-acupuncture were mild and infrequent. His findings have important implications for those planning future clinical trial studies.

The NICM award is intended to promote excellence in research and encourage NICM's early career researchers to continue writing up the research findings from their doctoral work.

Full citation:

Zhou X, Razmovski-Naumovski V, Chan K. A multivariate analysis on the comparison of raw notoginseng (Sanqi) and its granule products by thin-layer chromatography and ultra-performance liquid chromatography. Chin Med. 2015 Jun 6;10:13. DOI: 10.1186/s13020-015-0040-

McKeon C, Smith CA, Gibbons K, Hardy J.EA versus sham acupuncture and no acupuncture for the control of acute and delayed chemotherapy-induced nausea and vomiting: a pilot study. Acupunct Med. 2015 Aug;33(4):277-83. DOI: 10.1136/acupmed-2015-010781