2006 Healthy Development Adelaide Award

Professor Alastair MacLennan, Head of the Discipline of Obstetrics and Gynaecology at the University of Adelaide, was presented with the Healthy Development Adelaide Award at the 2nd annual HDA Oration 'Who will deliver the next generation? cerebral palsy causation and litigation’.

Professor MacLennan is Professor in Obstetrics and Gynaecology at the University of Adelaide and is an international expert on the menopause with a special interest in cerebral palsy. He is Director of the South Australian Cerebral Palsy Research Group and is actively involved in promoting professional and legislative changes in cerebral palsy litigation around the world.

New research published internationally in 2005 and 2006 from the South Australian Cerebral Palsy Research Group shows that cerebral palsy cases are significantly associated with three new risk factors: certain hereditary thrombophilias (clotting disorders), cytokine polymorphisms (gene mutations in one of the body's main defence mechanisms to infection) and increased exposure during pregnancy to viruses.