THE University of Sydney is putting the finishing touches to a bold $500 million initiative, aimed at saving the world from obesity and related diseases.
The project, which relied on the sale of a donated Picasso painting for some of its funding, is aimed at finding new ways to tackle diabetes, cardiovascular disease and other illnesses related to poor nutrition and inactivity.
It brings together hundreds of scientists and researchers from vastly different backgrounds who will try to understand what makes people fat and unhealthy. A major focus will be health issues affecting indigenous people.
A 50,000sq/m building housing lecture halls and close to 1000 researchers will be the hub of the project, named in honour of Charles Perkins, the first Aboriginal man in Australia to graduate from university.
"He is one of those figures that embodies everything we want the centre to be," says Academic Director Professor Stephen Simpson.
"The centre is challenging. It thinks differently. It takes a broader view and ultimately will have an impact.
"Charles Perkins was also an aboriginal man who died in his 60s from chronic kidney disease. This is all too common and is why aboriginal health is one of the major themes of the centre."
Other cross-cutting themes in the research include nutrition, physical activity, the politics, governance and ethics of chronic disease, and sustainability.
"It's an extraordinary project," says Prof Simpson, the speaker at a business breakfast hosted by NSW Chief Scientist and Engineer Professor Mary O'Kane in Sydney on Wednesday.
"My academic career started in Australia. I spent 20-odd years at Oxford and have worked internationally. I have never seen a university show such vision or ambition and commit so many resources to such an important project.
"Solutions could be clinical, educational, legislative or empowering of individuals through technology."
Prof Simpson says there has been a great deal of effort trying to treat chronic diseases and the associated metabolic disorders as if they are infectious diseases, but the problems cannot be solved with a single drug or other silver bullet.
"These disease are just not like that. They are woven into the fabric of what we are. You cannot just fix one little bit. The whole system requires investigation.
"That's as true of our metabolism and why it goes wrong as it is of our social systems and food production systems."
He says there needs to be a medical solution, "but it needs to be in conjunction with efforts to help people change their lifestyle and to change society more generally."
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