Basil Hetzel Institute bench-to-bedside focus for research with Adelaide's Queen Elizabeth hospital
Professor Tim Price (centre), oncologist at The Queen Elizabeth Hospital, with his 2019 solid tumor research group, one of the speciality teams at the Basil Hetzel institute.
Image courtesy Basil Hetzel Institute for Translational Health Research
The Basil Hetzel Institute for Translational Health Research in 2009 became the research arm of The Queen Elizabeth Hospital and home to almost 200 researchers and research administrative staff in the Adelaide suburb of Woodville.
The institute provided a dynamic state-of-the-art research environment for vital bench-to-bedside research and research training. Affiliated with Adelaide University, Flinders University and the University of South Australia, the Basil Hetzel Institute was a short walk from The Queen Elizabeth Hospital, allowing for a vital and active interface between researchers and clinicians.
All research groups had strong links to clinical divisions within the hospital, underpinning the institute’s overarching focus on translational health research. This bench-to-bedside approach headed an emerging area of medical science to improve public health through collaborative discoveries and innovations in patient care, education and research.
Research by the institute covered a broad spectrum, exploring causes, potential improvements in therapeutic outcomes and preventing some of the most serious and common health conditions. Research areas included: ageing, cancer (breast, bowel, liver metastasis, prostate and oesophageal), cardiovascular disease, chronic disease; clinical sciences, health services and population health; drug and vaccine development; inflammatory disease.
Building on The Queen Elizabeth Hospital’s impressive research record, the institute was named after the hospital’s first professor of medicine and one of Australia’s leading medical researchers Basil Hetzel. Hetzel was revered worldwide for his pioneering work that discovered the link between iodised salt in the diet and preventing brain damage in newborns. Dr Hetzel’s ground-breaking research helped millions of children in 130 countries where iodine was lacking.
