A million-dollar Federal Government grant for an ambitious project to deploy portable brain imaging devices could revolutionise stroke treatment in Australia.

Geoffrey Donnan, professor of neurology at the University of Melbourne, and Professor Stephen Davis, director of the Melbourne Brain Centre at the Royal Melbourne Hospital, are leading the project.

They want to miniaturise brain scanning technology, make every ambulance in Australia ‘stroke-capable’, launch the world’s first stroke air ambulance and establish a nationwide telestroke network connecting neurologists with first responders. 

They are driving the work of the Australian Stroke Alliance — a partnership that includes clinicians, academics and medical device companies, which has won a starter grant from the government’s Medical Research Future Fund frontier research program. Here we speak with Professor Donnan.