Why choose Baker IDI for Post-graduate Studies?
Students are in a unique position to benefit from technological expansion at the Baker IDI Heart and Diabetes Institute.
Baker IDI has a strong student base with over 80 students. The current student body consists of work experience, summer projects, AMS, Masters, Honours and PhD students.
The Institute’s commitment to world class research is reflected in our ongoing program to acquire and utilise state-of-the-art technology in our research efforts. We run a sophisticated, multimillion-dollar proteomics analysis facility. This new technology allows analysis of the global patterning and expression profiles of proteins within a cell or tissue and provides a revolutionary approach to identify even the very low abundance proteins whose altered activity may contribute to the disease state.
World-class animal facility
Baker IDI Institute also has a world-class animal facility with highly sophisticated surgical and transgenic models of hypertrophy, heart failure and vascular disease. The Precinct Animal Centre (PAC) is a purpose-built facility for breeding and housing animals to be used in medical research. The environmental conditions within the PAC ensure the highest standards of animal welfare. The PAC has security-coded access for researchers and specialist services for animal surgery, quarantine, and high-level containment areas.
Technologically advanced gene therapy facility
Molecular biology studies at Baker IDI are also technologically advanced and include a gene therapy facility which employs viral-based vectors and transgenic approaches to introduce recombinant genes into living cells both in culture and in vivo. These technologies represent some of the most powerful methods to manipulate the expression of individual genes in situation and allow us to establish their relative contribution to the aetiology of cardiovascular disease. The localisation of newly identified proteins and of changes in expression of genes within tissues and cells are performed using confocal microscopy in the imaging facility. This facility enables investigation of the expression, distribution and co-localisation of proteins, allowing analyses of molecular interactions within live cells. These confocal microscopy techniques complement a strong program in imaging, with histological analysis of tissues, and imaging of live animals using echocardiography.
Core service areas
Core service areas include surgical suites for conducting sterile recovery procedures, procedural areas for non-invasive procedures, autopsy of animals and recovery of tissues. Combined with all this is a skilled team of technical staff who can assist researchers in animal ethics applications, animal handling, technical procedures and animal care. Taken together, the capabilities of our animal facility coupled with proteomic, gene therapy and imaging approaches, provide an integrated molecular and cellular approach to investigate the causes underlying the development and progression of many cardiovascular diseases.
World class clinical trials centre
Baker IDI also runs a world class clinical trials centre to facilitate the development of new drug therapies to combat diseases such as cancer, cardiovascular and neurological diseases. Clinical Trials Victoria provides researchers with access to the resources and facilities to secure innovative, high quality clinical research trials and further establishes Baker IDI as the premier ‘bench-to-bedside’ cardiovascular centre in the southern hemisphere.