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Science In Public

Science writers, communicators, media, training, and public relations

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How superbug A. baumannii survives metal stress and resists antibiotics

Work is underway into how science can stop the superbug A. baumanniii after research exposes a weak link in the deadly but poorly understood pathogen.

Images for download

Inside the Galleria Facility at Macquarie University’s Applied Biosciences Laboratories

The deadly hospital pathogen Acinetobacter baumannii can live for a year on a hospital wall without food and water. Then, when it infects a vulnerable patient, it resists antibiotics as well as the body’s built-in infection-fighting response. The World Health Organization (WHO) recognises it as one of the three top pathogens in critical need of new antibiotic therapies.

Now, an international team, led by Macquarie University researchers Dr. Ram Maharjan and Associate Professor Amy Cain, have discovered how the superbug can survive harsh environments and then rebound, causing deadly infections. They have found a single protein that acts as a master regulator. When the protein is damaged, the bug loses its superpowers allowing it to be controlled, in a lab setting. The research is published in Nucleic Acids Research.

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Indigenous communities creating a new approach to STEM skills

An innovative chemistry, soap-making and hygiene engagement project is launching in partnership with young Indigenous scientists.

MERCK’s Giorgia Todesco will travel to the Northern Territory with the DeadlyScience team to pilot the first DeadlyLabs kit. It’s a project led by Elders in the Robinson River region to share their knowledge, their ideas, and their care for the community.

Learners in rural Northern Territory are set to road-test a new science kit exploring the chemistry of soap-making and hygiene with experiments based in Indigenous science.

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April’s total solar eclipse over Ningaloo: the first of five for Australia

Scientists and eclipse enthusiasts available for interviews: contact Tanya Ha at Science in Public on 0404 083 863 or tanya@scienceinpublic.com.au

Images below

At 11.29 am AWST on Thursday 20 April 2023 the sun will disappear over Ningaloo. It will reappear a minute later.

The rest of Australia will experience a partial eclipse, and a chance to prepare for the big one, a total eclipse over Sydney in 2028.

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The largest cosmic blast ever, pinpointed with Macquarie researcher help

The location of the brightest cosmic explosion ever recorded was pinpointed at 2.4 billion light years from Earth by a team of astronomers, which included a Macquarie University researcher.

The blast, known as a gamma-ray burst (GRB), was first picked up by sensors on veteran spacecraft Voyager 1 last October, only arriving at Earth 19 hours later.

It was then detected by several gamma-ray space telescopes, such as NASA’s Swift and Fermi, and the European Space Agency’s INTEGRAL.

But two papers published this week show it was spectroscopic data collected by the European Southern Observatory’s (ESO) Very Large Telescope that finally helped locate the origin of the blast in a previously unknown galaxy.

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Prizes, awards and opportunities

  • Nominate your top scientists, science communicators, and research leaders for one of 18 Eureka Prizes. Nominations open until 14 April.
  • ATSE awards are open until 29 May, for excellence in technology, applied science and engineering.
  • Look out for the ABC Top 5 Media Residency Program, opening soon. For early-career researchers across science, arts and humanities with a flair and passion for communicating their work.

More on each below.

If you need support with planning and editing your nominations, we can help.

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The messy death of a star

  • Reconstructed by a global forensic team of astronomers
  • Using stunning James Webb Space Telescope images
  • Reported in Nature Astronomy today

All images and detailed analysis available from the Space Telescope Science Institute at webbtelescope.org/contents/news-releases/2022/news-2022-059.

Around 2500 years ago, a star ejected most of its gas, forming the beautiful Southern Ring Nebula, NGC 3132, chosen as one of the first five image packages from the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST).

Two views of the gas in the Southern Ring Nebula (NIRCam and MIRI Composite Images). Image Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, NIRCam
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A lifetime investigating malaria leads to drugs that push back on resistance… And a CSL Florey Medal

Alan Cowman wins $50,000 CSL Florey Medal for Lifetime Achievement for revealing how malaria parasites infect humans, paving the way for new drugs and vaccines for a disease that infects more than 240 million people a year, and keeps communities in poverty.

Past CSL Florey Medallists include Graeme Clark, Ian Frazer, Ruth Bishop, and Nobel Laureates Barry Marshall and Robin Warren.

Professor Alan Cowman. Image credit: WEHI

Melbourne scientist Professor Alan Cowman AC has worked to understand how the malaria parasite Plasmodium falciparum causes disease in humans and how it evolves to outwit antimalarial drugs. He has also created genetic tools to modify the parasite, which have been used by malaria researchers worldwide.

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Using stem cells to give sight and controlling rogue blood stem cells

Winners of the 2022 National Stem Cell Foundation of Australia’s Metcalf Prizes announced

SCIENTISTS AVAILABLE FOR INTERVIEWS:

Researchers working with stem cells to restore sight and fight blood cancers are the two winners of the 2022 Metcalf Prizes for Stem Cell Research, awarded by the National Stem Cell Foundation of Australia.

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Using stem cells to give sight – Anai Gonzalez-Cordero

Dr Anai Gonzalez-Cordero. Credit: Children’s Medical Research Institute

Dr Anai Gonzalez-Cordero research aims to restore sight in people with inherited retinal diseases, by repairing or replacing damaged photoreceptor (light-sensing) cells in the eye.  

She has already shown that she can grow cultures of healthy photoreceptor cells in a dish in the lab and then use the cells replace the defective cells and restore sight in laboratory models of hereditary blindness. And she has shown that gene therapy can repair diseased human retinal cells grown in the lab as ‘mini-organs’ (or ‘organoids’), providing them with normal light-sensing ability. 

Her $55,000 Metcalf Prize will contribute to developing systems to progress both concepts towards clinical trials. She is based at Children’s Medical Research Institute (CMRI) in Western Sydney.  

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Controlling rogue blood stem cells – Ashley Ng

Dr Ashley Ng seeing a patient. Credit: WEHI.

Dr Ashley Ng is revealing how blood stem cells are controlled, and how they sometime go rogue, leading to blood cancers. He has discovered how a protein known as ‘ERG’ underpins healthy development of blood cells, and how it also plays a role in Down syndrome-associated leukaemia and a range of other blood cancers.

As a researcher at WEHI and a clinician at the Royal Melbourne Hospital and Peter Mac, Ashley will use his $55,000 Metcalf Prize to advance his ideas from the laboratory into treatments for blood and blood cancer diseases.

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