Bosch Institute News - July to September, 2007
Prize Lecture
Professor David Allen was awarded the Prize Lecture of the Australian and UK Physiological Societies. He was the guest of the UK Physiological Society and presented his lecture entitled 'Of muscle damage in mice and men; role of stretch-activated channels and reactive oxygen species' at nine different institutions around the UK in September 2007. He also gave the 2007 Basic Science Lecture at the Cardiac Society of Australia and New Zealand in Christchurch in Aug 2007.
Flow Cytometry Conference
Our Flow Cytometry Officer, Dr Sabita Rana, has recently returned from two international conferences in Brazil and the United Kingdom. In addition to her duties in the Bosch Flow Cytometry Facility, Dr Rana is a research member of the Dermatology Laboratories. Her studies examining the effects of ultraviolet radiation on T cell immune responses was accepted as an oral presentation at the 13th International Congress of Immunology (ICI) conference (Rio de Janeiro, Brazil) and at the 12th Congress of the European Society for Photobiology (ESP) conference (Bath, UK). Other members of the Bosch Institute were also active participants at ICI and ESP. For Dr Rana, some of the research highlights of the meetings included learning about a novel population of regulatory T cells in abdominal fat tissue and discovering that 5 minutes of total body exposure to sunlight is all you need to provide a sufficient daily dose of vitamin D.
Bosch research team discovers binocular vision gene
Dr Catherine Leamey heads the Developmental Neurobiology Laboratory of the Bosch Institute. In collaboration with her colleagues from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and the Max-Planck institute for Biochemistry in Germany, Dr Leamey’s team have identified an important gene responsible for binocular vision.
Read more
Faculty of Medicine Major Equipment Grants
The Bosch Institute has been successful with two applications to the Faculty of Medicine Major Equipment Grants scheme. The Bosch Molecular biology Facility in the Anderson Stuart Building has received a $30,000 contribution towards equipment for the new PC2 Laboratory; this will be used to purchase a freeze drier, incubator shaker and autoclave. This grant was supported by 14 Bosch Senior Researchers from the Anderson Stuart Building.
An additional $50,000 was granted to the second Bosch Molecular Biology Facility in the Blackburn Building and this will go towards the purchase of a Nanodrop spectrophotometer, a Nanopure water system, a biological safety cabinet, two incubator shakers, an Emulsiflex-C5 Homogeniser and Western blotting apparatus. This grant was supported by 16 Bosch Senior Researchers from the Blackburn Building.
Chief investigator Professor Des Richardson said “These funds are of great value to grow our core facilities”. He further added that “This was a good example of the benefits of researchers working in a cohesive manner to attract vital funding and grow capacity in biomedical research within the Bosch Institute and the University of Sydney”. Des also commended Molecular Biology Officer Dr Donna Lai for her invaluable support with the grant applications.
Pictured: Professor Des Richardson centre with his colleagues in his lab.
Travelling Fellowship for Bosch Young Investigator
Katie Dixon is undertaking her PhD in Vitamin D and protection from sun damage under the supervision of Professor Rebecca Mason, Head of the Bone & Skin Laboratory, Bosch Institute. Katie was successful in securing a travelling fellowship from the Education and Training Committee of the European Society for Photobiology to attend the European Photobiology Society meeting in Bath, UK at the beginning of September.
Pictured: Mel Barron, Katie Dixon, and Tara Brennan are PhD students in the Mason Lab, photo taken at the Bosch Young Investigators Harbour Cruise welcome.
Bosch CJ Martin Fellow
Dr Renae Ryan is a CJ Martin Fellow in the Bosch Institute. Dr Ryan completed her PhD in the Discipline of Pharmacology under the supervision of Associate Professor Rob Vandenberg, head of the Molecular Pharmacology Laboratory within the Bosch Institute.
Dr Ryan has recently returned to the Bosch Institute following a 3 year Postdoctoral Fellowship, 1 year in the lab of Eric Gouaux at Columbia University and 2 years at the NIH/NINDS with Joe Mindell.
Read more
Bosch Visiting Scholar
Dr Hajime Yuasa from Kochi University, Japan, arrived in September to spend one year on study leave in Professor Nick Hunt's Laboratory. Dr Yuasa is an expert on the enzyme indoleamine dioxygenase (IDO). Recently, Dr Helen Ball in Professor Hunt's laboratory identified a gene that makes a protein that has some properties similar to IDO. They called this protein '"IDO-2" and their paper reporting this discovery (Ball HJ et al. Gene 396, 203 213, 2007) has provoked a lot of interest from scientists in the USA. The IDO-1 and IDO-2 genes arose by a "gene duplication" event more than 300 million years ago, according to the work of Dr Ball and Dr Lars Jermiin from the School of Biological Sciences.
Dr Yuasa will work with the Hunt Laboratory to investigate the evolution of IDO-like proteins and to identify the roles in human beings of the newly-discovered IDO-2.
Male Circumcision
On Monday 27 August Professor Brian Morris presented a live interview on 60 Minutes discussing his opinion of circumcision. Professor Morris is Head of the Basic & Clinical Genomics Laboratory in the Bosch Institute and is an advocate for male circumcision.
Further information on this interview can be found at sixtyminutes.ninemsn.com.au, and on Brian Morris' website www.circinfo.net a comprehensive list of the benefits and risks of circumcision can be downloaded.
Professor Morris also chaired the circumcision session " Male Circumcision: The Cutting Edge of HIV Prevention" at the International AIDS Society conference held in late July.
For more information visit this webcast.
Distinguished Scientist visits Bosch
Dr Ronan Jambou, a researcher from the Pasteur Institute, is presently spending 24 months in the laboratory of Professor Georges Grau, Vascular Immunology Unit, Faculty of Medicine & Bosch Institute. As a distinguished researcher in clinical and experimental malaria, Dr Jambou will develop several projects and implement collaborative works with Professors Grau and Hunt. This will build on the existing collaborations between them and European as well as African scientists, funded through a European Union Framework 6 grant on the role of microparticles in cerebral malaria.
Bosch Researcher receives prestigious award
Dr Samuel Solomon heads the Laboratory of Vision and Cognition within the Bosch Institute. In July 2007, at the annual meeting of the Australian Neuroscience Society (held in conjunction with that of the International Brain Research Organisation) in Melbourne, Sam was presented with the AW Campbell award. This prestigious award acknowledges the best contribution to the field by a member of the society in their first five postdoctoral years, and commemorates the eminent Australian neurologist whose “Histological studies on the localisation of cerebral function” in 1905 founded cerebral cytoarchitectonics.
Nature Article
Executive Director of the Bosch institute, Professor Nicholas Hunt and colleague Professor Roland Stocker, Head of the Vascular Research Laboratory of the Bosch Institute were invited to submit a “News and Views” article on “Heme moves to center stage in cerebral malaria” in Nature Medicine, Volume 13, Number 6 June 2007.
Carrick Award
Dr Hilary Lloyd is a Senior Lecturer in Pharmacology. In July 2007 Hilary was one of 10 recipients of a Carrick Institute's "Discipline Based Initiative Scheme". The $94,368 grant will fund the project "Ensuring Quality Graduates of Pharmacology". Hillary’s role will be joint project coordinator alongside leader, Dr James Ziogas, Melbourne University.
