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Surfing at 85 – the genetics of healthy ageing and cancer

Centenary LogoWe’re living longer. That means that we’re all at greater risk of cancer and we’ll all suffer from bone loss. And for many of us, our final
years will be difficult.

Josef Penninger plans to change all that. His vision is of a future where we can safely surf and live active lives at 85 years of age without fear of fracture, cancer or any of the other scourges of ageing.

He’s director of Austria’s Institute of Molecular Biotechnology, and is in Australia as a guest of the Centenary Institute in Sydney to share his vision for a healthy old age, and discuss the research that’s getting us there.

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Join the systems biology revolution; meet our new SA group leaders; travel grants

In this month’s newsletter:


Posted on behalf of Nadia Rosenthal, Scientific Head, EMBL Australia
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Evolution stuck in slime for a billion years

UTAS logo

Wednesday 19 February 2014

Tasmanian researchers have revealed ancient conditions that almost ended life on Earth, using a new technique they developed to hunt for mineral deposits.

The first life developed in the ancient oceans around 3.6 billion years ago, but then nothing much happened. Life remained as little more than a layer of slime for a billion years. Suddenly, 550 million years ago, evolution burst back into action – and here we are today. So what was the hold-up during those ‘boring billion’ years?

According to University of Tasmania geologist Professor Ross Large and his international team, the key was a lack of oxygen and nutrient elements, which placed evolution in a precarious position. “During that billion years, oxygen levels declined and the oceans were losing the ingredients needed for life to develop into more complex organisms.”

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Travel grants, prizes and conferences: a year of idea-sharing ahead

In this month’s newsletter:

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Australia’s membership of EMBL to be renewed, your first hug and other news

In this month’s newsletter:

  • Upcoming events
  • About EMBL Australia

    • Posted on behalf of Nadia Rosenthal, Scientific Head, EMBL Australia

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    A better hearing test: invented in Melbourne, using words not beeps

    Free and available online now for the four million Australians with hearing loss

    It’s taken 70 years to invent a better hearing test. That’s how long we’ve been using the classic ‘beep’ audiology test, first developed to assess returned soldiers from WW2.

    A team of Melbourne researchers has now created a new test that uses real words, not tones. You can do the test yourself at home or work and obtain an immediate, easily understood interpretation of the results. If you need a hearing aid they can send you one within days that is the equal of the best hearing aid, but for a fraction of the cost.

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    Your first hug: how the early embryo changes shape

    Captured on camera, published in Nature Cell Biology

    For the first time, we have been able to watch as filopodia reach out and grab neighbouring cells, pulling them closer and elongating the cell membranes. Credit EMBL Aus
    For the first time, we have been able to watch as filopodia reach out and grab neighbouring cells, pulling them closer and elongating the cell membranes. Credit: EMBL Australia

    When you were an embryo, just 8-cells large, your eight roundish cells did something they had never done before – something that would determine whether you survived or failed. They changed their shape.

    The cells became elongated and compacted against each other, before returning to their rounded shape and dividing again and again.

    It may seem simple enough, but this shaping process of cell elongation and compaction is essential for embryo success. When compaction does not occur, embryos tend not to survive. And the timing of compaction has been linked to success in IVF (in vitro fertilisation) treatments.

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    Golden staph paralyses our immune defences: Nature Immunology

    A ringside seat in the war against infection

    Images and video available

    staph_3
    Depletion of macrophages (green cells) after injection of golden staph (orange-red material) into the skin. Credit: Centenary Institute/Nature Immunology

    When golden staph enters our skin it can identify the key immune cells and ‘nuke’ our body’s immune response.

    Now we know how, thanks to an international research group led by dermatologists from the Centenary Institute and the University of Sydney.

    Using state-of-the art microscopy techniques, the team identified the key immune cells that orchestrate the body’s defenders against invading golden staph, and also how the bacteria can target and destroy these cells, circumventing the body’s immune response.

    [Read more…] about Golden staph paralyses our immune defences: Nature Immunology