Research Domain Coordinator - Professor Peter Ebeling, Clinical Sciences and Health Practice
Research Domain Coordinator - Professor Peter Ebeling, Clinical Sciences and Health Practice
"The days of the single researcher are gone: the bigger the team the better," says Peter Ebeling, coordinator for the clinical sciences and health services research domain.
Peter is Professor of Medicine and heads Endocrinology at Western Health in the area where he grew up as a child. Growing up there were no general practitioners in Deer Park, so the family's doctor was in Sunshine. This doctor made a big impression on him.
During his MD, Peter Ebeling shared in the discovery of the parathyroid hormone-related protein – which regulates the body's calcium metabolism in cancer, and also has local effects in bone and other tissues – then worked at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, USA, conducting clinical research into osteoporosis. Back in Australia, he became Deputy Director of Endocrinology at the Royal Melbourne Hospital. Now at the Western Hospital, Peter has built up a research team looking into osteoporosis, Vitamin D deficiency and pre-diabetes. These areas of research address the complex health needs of Melbourne's west, a region with Victoria's highest burden of chronic disease.
"I'm hoping the domain will focus and strengthen research and that researchers will more readily collaborate, linking similar research," says Peter. "It's already happening with a cross-faculty obesity working group, a good example of successful collaboration."
Peter's capacity for strategic management will be utilized extensively in this complex domain which houses so many clinical and health-practice disciplines.