Australia Day honours: stem cell pioneer Alan Mackay-Sim takes his bow

Queenslander’s work enabled the “scientific equivalent of the moon landing” | HONOURS LIST

The 2017 Australian of the Year Alan Mackay-Sim. Picture: Kym Smith

A Queensland scientist whose pion­eering stem cell work enabled the “scientific equivalent of the moon landing”, with the successful treatment of a quadriplegic who can now walk, has been named Australian of the Year.

Emeritus Professor Alan Mackay-Sim, who served for a decade as director of the National Centre for Adult Stem Cell Research­ at Griffith University, was honoured by Malcolm Turnbull at a ceremony last night in Parliament House.

Now retired, 65-year-old Profess­or Mackay-Sim is a global authority on the human sense of smell and the biology of nasal cells.

Through the research centre, he championed the use of stem cells to understand the biological bases of brain disorders and diseases such as schizophrenia and Parkinson’s disease.

But it was his role in facilitating a breakthrough described as the “scientific equivalent of the moon landing” — the world’s first successful restoration of mobility in a quadriplegic man in 2014 — that drew attention to his life’s work. Professor Mackay-Sim led the world’s first clinical trial using cells from the nose in spinal cord injury.

While the patients involved did not regain movement in their legs, his work demonstrated that the procedure was safe and advanced understanding of neural ­regeneration.

Since then, however, Professor Mackay-Sim has been forced to swap his white coat for a hospit­al gown — even needing a stem cell transplant himself — after being diagnosed with multiple myel­oma, a form of leukaemia.

Now recovering, Professor Mackay-Sim expects to spend the year talking a lot about spinal cord injury, rare diseases, stem cells and promises for the future. He said it was crucial for scientists to speak publicly about the importance of their work “in language that people can understand”. He praised quantum physicist Michelle Simmons for using her Australia Day address­ earlier this week to attack attempts to “feminise” the high school physics curriculum.

“We need to have an educated population, whether or not they really understand the depths of science,” he said.

“We need to get across the message that science is a superior way of understanding the world.”

Griffith University vice-chancellor Ian O’Connor said last night the fraternity was “extremely proud to have such a remarkable man and scientist among us”.

“Alan’s research has laid the foundation for global efforts to use stem cell surgery to repair spinal cord injury,” Professor O’Connor said.

Other contenders for the honour were Deng Adut, a Sudanese child soldier turned Sydney refug­ee lawyer; West Australian businessman and philanthropist Andrew Forrest; Victorian refugee advocate Paris Aristotle; Northern Territory indigenous leader and businesswoman Andrea Mason; Tasmanian justice system speech pathologist Rosalie Martin; South Australian author and dementia advocate Kate Swaffer; and ACT NRL champion and youth mentor Alan Tongue.

In his Australia Day message, the Prime Minister said Austral­ians had a right to be proud of their past and confident of greater achievements in the ­future.

“Deep in our DNA we know that everyone is entitled to a fair go in the great race of life,” he said. “And if you fall behind, we will lend you a helping hand to get ahead.”

Also honoured were Young Australian of the Year Paul Vasil­eff, an ­acclaimed fashion designer and entrepreneur from Adelaide; Australia’s Local Hero Vicki Jellie, a cancer fundraiser from Warrnambool in Victoria; and Senior Australian of the Year Sister Anne Gardiner, an 85-year-old educator and volunteer on the Tiwi Islands in the Northern Territory.