From the Director

Welcome to our festive summer edition and final newsletter for the year.

Reflecting on the year that has been 2022 we have many things to celebrate as we close off another busy and fruitful year. In February we opened the first university-based academic integrative healthcare centre in Australia, Next Practice - Western Sydney Integrative Health. Our new GMP manufacturing facility, a Natural Product Development Laboratory and additional PC2 space was completed and soon to be operational in first half of 2023. We were immensely proud to share the news of the University’s rankings, first in the world in the Times Higher Education (THE) Impact Rankings in addressing the 17 United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. Last month we witnessed the Innovation Quarter Westmead Stage 1 officially opened, and the announcement of our new joint Ayurveda Academic Chair with the All India Institute of Ayurveda (AIIA), Ministry of Ayush, Government of India. Both stories you will read about in this issue. We celebrated the life of Dr Judy Jacka OAM for her lifetime of service, her achievements and enduring legacy. We also welcomed along with the traditional and complementary medicine community around the world the establishment of the World Health Organization Global Centre for Traditional Medicine in India.

As you’ll read in this newsletter, we take this opportunity to further celebrate the success and achievements of all our staff and students. We have achieved an extraordinary number of high impact research publications supported by extensive positive media coverage. Several researchers and students have also been awarded prestigious grants and recognitions.

I congratulate all our researchers for NICM HRI identified as Australia’s top research institution in the field of Alternative and Traditional Medicine in latest The Australian Research 2023 Magazine, and special accolades to Professor Jerome Sarris named as top researcher for the discipline of Natural Medicines and Medicinal Plants.

I extend further congratulations to Adjunct Dr Joseph Firth who was named and recognised in the prestigious Clarivate’s Highly Cited Researchers list. The list recognises researchers from around the world who demonstrate significant and broad influence, through publication of multiple highly-cited papers in their chosen field. I would like to congratulate Dr Phoebe Zhou who received the Complementary Medicines Australia’s Young Achiever of the Year Award. Further congratulations are extended to Associate Professor Genevieve Steiner-Lim for winning the Best Oral Presentation Award at the Australian Dementia Research Forum 2022, Dr Deep Bhuyan for winning the People’s Choice Award at Western Sydney University’s Research Impact Competition, and NICM HRI PhD candidate, Emma Wong, awarded the first Barrie Cassileth scholarship that supported her travel to the SIO conference in October in Arizona.

On behalf of the NICM HRI team, we wish you all the very best for a safe and peaceful holiday break and the New Year ahead. NICM HRI will be closed from 5pm, Monday 19 December 2022 and will open for business on Tuesday 3 January 2023, when normal business hours will resume.

I hope you enjoy our summer newsletter and the holiday break.

With best wishes,

Professor Dennis Chang

13 December 2022