Winter 2025: A bumper In-SPHERE issue
The Winter 2025 issue of In-SPHERE is here—and it’s our biggest yet. This bumper edition features stories from all 15 SPHERE partners, showcasing how collaboration across research, health, and education is transforming lives.
Leading this issue is a special Q&A with Professor Robert Gorkin, SPHERE’s newly appointed Interim Executive Director. With a background in biomedical engineering, global health, and translational innovation, Professor Gorkin brings a strong vision for continuity and collaboration. He reflects on SPHERE’s evolution, the unique value of cross-sector partnerships, and his plans to ensure that our shared research continues to improve care, equity, and health outcomes across our region.
From the bench to the bedside, this edition captures the breadth of innovation underway across SPHERE’s network.
A standout feature explores the future of heart repair, where researchers are bioprinting personalised heart patches to help patients with heart failure—an important step forward as the demand for donor hearts far exceeds supply.
We also explore how digital storytelling is opening up mental health research, with children co-creating short films alongside researchers at the Black Dog Institute. These creative workshops are helping give voice to children’s lived experiences in ways that traditional data collection can’t match.
At the Ingham Institute for Applied Medical Research, another SPHERE partner, Assistive Technology is reshaping rehabilitation for people with acquired brain injury. Through the Assistive Technology Hub, clinicians, researchers, and patients are working together to create personalised solutions that support communication, independence, and cognitive recovery.
Equity in care is another strong theme in this issue. In “Healing with Respect,” we spotlight a powerful new model of culturally safe cancer care for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, led by A/Prof Julieann Coombes and her team. The Safe Pathways program, being piloted in South Western Sydney, aims to overcome systemic barriers through embedded support, cultural awareness, and trust-building.
Other highlights include new research tackling frailty in older patients undergoing heart valve procedures, gene therapy breakthroughs for children with spinal muscular atrophy, and new workplace interventions for menstrual health and endometriosis—all reminders of the wide-reaching impact of SPHERE’s collaborative research ecosystem.
And then there’s —activist, researcher, and author. At 86, Glenda is challenging the invisibility of older women in research and public discourse.
From pioneering science to patient-driven care, this edition of In-SPHERE captures the momentum of a partnership that spans disciplines, communities, and generations.