The Footy Lady: The Trailblazing Story of Susan Alberti by Stephanie Asher

Author:Stephanie Asher [Asher, Stephanie]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780522872576
Google: fhrMswEACAAJ
Publisher: Melbourne University Publishing
Published: 2017-01-15T01:05:54.559000+00:00

Medical research is funded in Australia largely through official government grants from the National Health and Medical Research Council. Individual project grants are generally awarded for three to five years, program grants for a group of people run for five years, while a fellow-ship—the pinnacle of funding success—usually also entails a five-year agreement. This means that many scientists spend several months each year writing grant applications to cover the costs of their work, including their own salaries. There is no guarantee that money will be provided year-on-year, and the applications are assessed via a contentious peer-review system—although Gus Nossal, for one, supports the intent of the practice: ‘Putting a project together in a way that will impress your peers is a good discipline’. The other avenue of funding involves the so-called ‘soft money’ provided by disease-specific organisations and philanthropic bodies, which researchers rely on to keep them going between grant rounds. As Len Harrison explains, ‘Sue, by her efforts and contributions, has plugged the gaps and allowed the work of many researchers to continue’.

Sue is readily acknowledged by all the leading diabetes researchers as having been a key part of the area for many decades. Tom Kay describes her as ‘the most significant diabetes philanthropist in Australia by a mile. Sue is a force to be reckoned with, someone who can be very helpful and who can get things done’. Dr Mark Cooper, a world-renowned specialist in diabetes complications, concurs with Tom, saying that Sue ‘is the doyenne of philanthropy in this country, unbelievably committed and unbelievably hardworking’. Mark says that Sue has a particular interest in his team’s research ‘because we work on kidney and cardiovascular complications of diabetes, which, unfortunately, was a problem for her daughter Danielle’, adding that Sue ‘remained committed after her daughter died—that is a very important point’.

Tom’s view is that Sue’s response to Danielle’s diagnosis was to ‘throw herself into a mode of “Something should be done about this disease”. And then she went about finding out what she could do, in her hands-on way’. Tom describes this as operating at ‘an organisational level aspect of how the system is going to beat the disease. There has been an enormous amount of “roll up the sleeves” and she gets very involved. It was her way of dealing with the incredible pressure of her daughter being sick. A lot of people would retreat into the family shell, perhaps, but Sue saw the bigger opportunity of playing a leadership role with these organisations and trying to find out what could be done’.

A key to gaining the respect of any specialist in their field is understanding how to best interact with them, and, in the case of medical research, identify where to add value. ‘Sue’s interest is goal-based and people-based. It’s not specifically in cells and DNA, that’s not her thing. It’s about people’, observes Tom.

Motivated by personal experience, not by personal gain, Sue’s initial drive to contribute to diabetes research was likely an attempt, at least in part, to assuage a sense of guilt and helplessness at not being able to save her own daughter.

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