Emerita Professor Sarah Dunlop
Emerita Professor Sarah Dunlop, PhD, is Director, Plastics & Human Health, Minderoo Foundation. She established the program at the beginning of 2020 to examine the impact of plastic exposure on human health with the goal of stopping plastic pollution by transforming industry and chemical regulation as well as by re-designing plastic.
She trained at the University of London in heavy metal toxicity and then immigrated to Australia to pursue a research career in neuroscience at The University of Western Australia. Her medical research career focussed on responses and recovery following chemical and physical injury to the brain, spinal cord and peripheral nervous system in animal models and humans. She led a number of discovery research programs, including training to promote recovery after peripheral nerve damage and spinal cord injury, novel treatments for diabetic retinopathy, and the inadvertent impact on the developing brain of maternally administered drug therapies to prevent pre-term birth. Her clinical research on spinal cord injured patients included multi-centre randomized controlled trials to examine novel ways to exercise the paralysed limbs to promote neurological recovery, immediate intravenous cooling to buy time and prevent spreading damage before emergency decompression surgery, and protecting the bladder with biologically-inspired treatments to prevent recurrent urinary tract infection.
Senior leadership positions include President of the Australian Neuroscience Society, President of the Federation of the Asian & Oceanian Neuroscience Societies, Board Director - Spinal Cord Injury Network and Head - School of Biological Sciences, UWA.