This National Science Week, NSW Health Pathology would like you to meet some of the scientists who help diagnose cancer, support everyday clinical decisions, conduct drug and alcohol testing, and strengthen our quality systems.

We are cel­e­brat­ing sci­en­tists from across our organ­i­sa­tion whose careers demon­strate the many dif­fer­ent path­ways sci­ence can take and the impact it has on patients, the wider com­mu­ni­ty and the health­care sys­tem every day.

From Nepal to NSW, turning data into better patient care

Dr Pra­bin Gyawali has had a life­long love of biol­o­gy that led him to pur­sue a career in pathology.

The Senior Sci­en­tist and Clin­i­cal Sci­en­tist Trainee in Clin­i­cal Chem­istry at NSW Health Pathology’s ICPMR lab­o­ra­to­ry at West­mead Hos­pi­tal says his work is all about help­ing clin­i­cians make informed deci­sions about patient care.

“Sci­ence is ever-chang­ing and my role helps me inter­pret lab­o­ra­to­ry data from new per­spec­tives,” he said.

Pra­bin joined NSW Health Pathol­o­gy in 2021 and sup­ports clin­i­cal chem­istry ser­vices across West­mead and 28 satel­lite lab­o­ra­to­ries. He com­bines sci­en­tif­ic exper­tise, data analy­sis and col­lab­o­ra­tion with health­care providers to help trans­late lab results into bet­ter patient outcomes.

Orig­i­nal­ly from Nepal, Pra­bin moved to Aus­tralia in 2015 to under­take a PhD and expand his knowl­edge of clin­i­cal chem­istry. He built a suc­cess­ful career and remains pas­sion­ate about men­tor­ing oth­er scientists.

“Many peo­ple have strong sci­en­tif­ic knowl­edge, but need guid­ance nav­i­gat­ing the Aus­tralian pathol­o­gy sec­tor,” he said.

“Shar­ing my expe­ri­ence and help­ing oth­ers build con­fi­dence is incred­i­bly reward­ing for me.”

Science and quality go hand in hand

After almost 19 years with NSW Health Pathol­o­gy, Lil­lianne Ver­gara has seen first­hand how sci­ence extends far beyond the lab­o­ra­to­ry bench.

As Act­ing Man­ag­er of the Qual­i­ty Man­age­ment Unit at the Foren­sic & Ana­lyt­i­cal Sci­ence Ser­vice (FASS), Lil­lianne and her team help ensure the sys­tems behind lab­o­ra­to­ries meet the high­est standards.

“No two days are ever the same,” she said.

“One day may involve prepar­ing pro­fi­cien­cy test­ing sam­ples for lab­o­ra­to­ries across Aus­tralia and over­seas. Anoth­er might involve sup­port­ing statewide qual­i­ty sys­tems, assist­ing with accred­i­ta­tion activ­i­ties or improv­ing qual­i­ty man­age­ment process around our net­work of labs.

“I love that I am able to mix sci­ence with qual­i­ty. I enjoy ask­ing ques­tions, explor­ing evi­dence, find­ing the root caus­es of prob­lems and dis­cov­er­ing solu­tions that improve outcomes.”

Her work helps to ensure NSW Health Pathol­o­gy deliv­ers reli­able, con­sis­tent and high-qual­i­ty ser­vices that our health and jus­tice sys­tems can trust.

The science behind drug and alcohol testing

Taveet Sinan­ian works as a sci­en­tist at the Foren­sic & Ana­lyt­i­cal Sci­ence Ser­vice (FASS) Drugs and Dri­ving Tox­i­col­o­gy Unit.

“If you ask my par­ents, I’ve been inter­est­ed in sci­ence basi­cal­ly since I could read,” he said.

“They have many sto­ries of me doing chem­i­cal exper­i­ments in my room, strange flames and smoke ema­nat­ing from my room. I was absolute­ly a sci­ence kid.”

From a young age he was inter­est­ed in foren­sics and stud­ied a Bach­e­lor of Foren­sic Biol­o­gy and Bio­med­ical Sci­ence at UTS.

Taveet says he loves that his job is dif­fer­ent every day.

“One day I could be receiv­ing sam­ples and check­ing the chain of cus­tody is intact. The next, I could be analysing alco­hol or design­er drugs or devel­op­ing a new method of test­ing alcohol.”

What dri­ves him is the knowl­edge that his work can make a real dif­fer­ence to people.

“I’m pas­sion­ate about the work I do. Drink and drug dri­ving are sig­nif­i­cant issues and it’s reward­ing to know the work we do in the lab­o­ra­to­ry helps keep our com­mu­ni­ty safe and sup­ports the jus­tice system.”

Taveet also cred­its his close-knit team at the lab for cre­at­ing a sup­port­ive work­place culture.

Providing answers when they matter most

For Car­lie Wiers­ma, Lab­o­ra­to­ry Man­ag­er at NSW Health Pathology’s Tis­sue Pathol­o­gy and Diag­nos­tic Oncol­o­gy Depart­ment at Roy­al Prince Alfred Hos­pi­tal, a love of sci­ence began with class­room exper­i­ments in pri­ma­ry school.

“I first became inter­est­ed in sci­ence when I was in Year 4,” she said.

After study­ing foren­sic chem­istry at uni­ver­si­ty, Car­lie dis­cov­ered anatom­i­cal pathol­o­gy and nev­er looked back.

Today she helps over­see the exam­i­na­tion of tis­sue sam­ples rang­ing from small biop­sies to major sur­gi­cal spec­i­mens, play­ing a cru­cial role in can­cer diagnosis.

“Every day, patients, clin­i­cians and fam­i­lies rely on pathol­o­gy results to guide treat­ment and care deci­sions” she said.

“We are the peo­ple that pro­vide those results to your doc­tor so they can make a diag­no­sis and plan your treatment.

“The sam­ples go through a com­plex process before they can be prop­er­ly assessed by our expe­ri­enced pathol­o­gists. It’s inter­est­ing work, and some­times it’s like being a detective.

“But ulti­mate­ly, we are always aware of the impor­tance of what we do every day for the peo­ple who mat­ter most, our patients.”

Unlocking genetic mysteries for better diagnosis and patient care

Trans­lat­ing research find­ings into new ways to diag­nose rare genet­ic con­di­tions, par­tic­u­lar­ly among chil­dren, is impor­tant work tak­ing place at Rand­wick Genomics.

While the lab main­ly pro­vides genet­ic and genom­ic diag­nos­tic ser­vices, research that keeps expand­ing the range of tech­nolo­gies avail­able to sup­port such ser­vices and applies new skill sets and ways of think­ing is vital for ongo­ing progress in patient care accord­ing to Senior Staff Spe­cial­ist Pro­fes­sor Tony Roscioli.

“We’ve had some great suc­cess­es at our lab in trans­lat­ing fun­da­men­tal research in genomics into new life-sav­ing diag­nos­tic approach­es,” Prof Rosci­oli says.

“But more invest­ment in this kind of research will always be wel­comed to keep pace with rapid changes in genomics tech­nolo­gies and pur­sue new approach­es that could enhance diag­no­sis and patient care.”

Draw­ing on mul­ti-dis­ci­pli­nary exper­tise is anoth­er way the lab is being innovative.

“Quite a few things make Rand­wick Genomics unique,” Prof Rosci­oli says.

“We have a love­ly mix of peo­ple from all sorts of back­grounds work­ing in dif­fer­ent com­po­nents of genet­ics. Some are look­ing at chro­mo­somes, cyto­ge­net­ics or microar­ray, gene sequenc­ing and genomics.

“In the last few years, we’ve also focused on bioin­for­mat­ics. We’re one of the first labs to hire bioin­for­mati­cians as sci­en­tists who can take data and trans­form it and deal with big data sets. This is par­tic­u­lar­ly impor­tant for genomics research.

“Train­ing the next gen­er­a­tion of genomics experts is anoth­er essen­tial area we’ve invest­ed in for more than a decade.

“Genomics is one of the most excit­ing and fast-evolv­ing areas with­in pathol­o­gy and we must cer­tain­ly keep attract­ing the best tal­ent to expand our knowl­edge and tech­niques and har­ness the new tech­nolo­gies that will give hope to families.”

While their careers have tak­en very dif­fer­ent paths, Pra­bin, Lil­lianne, Taveet, Car­lie and Tony are all con­nect­ed by a com­mon inter­est in prob­lem solv­ing and improv­ing lives through science.

This Nation­al Sci­ence Week, we cel­e­brate their ded­i­ca­tion and exper­tise, which are help­ing to deliv­er bet­ter health and jus­tice out­comes for all of us.

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