Photos from the Prime Minister’s Prizes for Science award ceremony. [Read more…] about 2013 Prime Minister’s Prizes for Science – photos
2013 Prime Minister’s Prizes for Science
The Prime Minister’s Prizes for Science were presented by the Prime Minister assisted by the Hon Bob Baldwin, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Industry at the Prize Dinner in the Great Hall of Parliament House on Wednesday 30 October.
More about the winners below.
Coral chemicals protect against warming oceans
EMBARGO LIFTED: 4am AEDT, Thursday 24 October 2013
Nature paper reveals coral animals produce the ‘smell of the ocean’ – influencing cloud formation and protecting themselves against rising seawater temperatures.
Australian marine scientists have found the first evidence that coral itself may play an important role in regulating local climate.
They have discovered that the coral animal—not just its algal symbiont—makes an important sulphur-based molecule with properties to assist it in many ways, ranging from cellular protection in times of heat stress to local climate cooling by encouraging clouds to form.
These findings have been published in the prestigious weekly science journal Nature.
[Read more…] about Coral chemicals protect against warming oceans
A human systems biology centre for Sydney
Ramaciotti invests $1 million in a new approach to understanding human disease
“We’ll be able to ask individual immune cells where they’ve been and who they’ve been talking to…”
The University of Sydney and The Centenary Institute will establish the Ramaciotti Centre for Human Systems Biology in 2014 following the announcement earlier this evening of the $1 million Ramaciotti Biomedical Research Award.
[Read more…] about A human systems biology centre for Sydney
Prostate cancer’s Achilles’ heel uncovered
‘The Holst effect’ opens up new therapeutic options for prostate cancer treatment.
24 September 2013
A team of researchers from Sydney, Vancouver, Adelaide and Brisbane are getting closer to a new treatment for prostate cancer that relies on starving tumours of essential nutrients they need to grow.
In work just published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, Dr Jeff Holst, from Sydney’s Centenary Institute and his colleagues have shown they can slow the growth of the cancer by blocking the proteins which pump the amino acid leucine into tumour cells.
[Read more…] about Prostate cancer’s Achilles’ heel uncovered
Talking nanotech and biotech over a beer in QLD
Can corals change their genes to adapt to climate change?
What causes seafood allergies?
Can DNA barcodes improve detection and treatment of tropical disease?
And, using sponges for new drugs, stem cell research and environmental monitoring.
At Science in the Club on Thursday night Townsville residents will have the chance to engage with local scientists and ask their questions over a beer.
6pm Thursday 27 June 2013 Picnic Bay Surf Club, Townsville
[Read more…] about Talking nanotech and biotech over a beer in QLD
The arts, business and government come together to support medical science
Sydney society unites to support Centenary
Tanya Plibersek, Richard Champion de Crespigny, Justice Margaret Beazley, Tom Wenkart and many other Sydney luminaries will join Centenary Foundation chairman Joseph Carrozzi, a managing partner of global accountants PricewaterhouseCoopers, at the 2013 Foundation Dinner this Friday, 31 March.
They’ll have the opportunity to bid for: Chairman box seats at ANZ Stadium for the Bledisloe Cup; their own private jazz performance by the Jonathan Zwartz Trio; five luxury nights in Tasmania to experience Hobart, the Bay of Fires and the innovative Museum of Old and New Art; or the work of some of Australia’s finest artists.
[Read more…] about The arts, business and government come together to support medical science
New immune cells hint at eczema cause
Sydney researchers have discovered a new type of immune cell in skin that plays a role in fighting off parasitic invaders such as ticks, mites, and worms, and could be linked to eczema and allergic skin diseases.
The team from the Immune Imaging and T cell Laboratories at the Centenary Institute worked with colleagues from SA Pathology in Adelaide, the Malaghan Institute in Wellington, New Zealand and the USA.
Preventable liver disease costs more than diabetes
Sydney team hopes to reduce the burden with research-led intervention
27 March 2013
Liver diseases have an impact on the Australian economy 40 per cent greater than chronic kidney disease and Type 2 diabetes combined, according to a report released today.
The report estimates the annual burden of liver diseases in Australia at more than $50 billion. And yet almost all liver disease is preventable.
The Centenary Institute’s liver research unit is one of the biggest in Australia. It is also one of first in the world to try to come to grips with liver damage at its most fundamental molecular level.
[Read more…] about Preventable liver disease costs more than diabetes
Simple cough could save lives from TB
A community-wide screening program being trialled in Vietnam aims to create a new model for global TB control
In the 1950s and 1960s Australians were accustomed to having regular chest x-rays in a caravan, parked in their suburb, to screen for TB. During this time TB almost (but not quite) disappeared from Australia and the program was phased out.
Now Australian researchers from the Centenary Institute, Woolcock Institute of Medical Research and the Centre of Research Excellence on TB Control will assess the potential for a similar program of regular community-wide screening to have the same impact on TB in Vietnam, a country in which TB is still very common and costs many lives. However, instead of x-rays the team will use a new molecular test that is performed on sputum coughed up from patient’s lungs to detect TB. They hope their work will serve as a model for countries with a high burden of TB in our region and elsewhere.