Bosch Institute News - January to March, 2008
2008 Bosch Young Investigators - Honour Students Orientation Program
The 2008 intake of Bosch Young Investigators were officially welcomed on Wednesday 5 March at a 2 day orientation program designed and implemented especially for the Bosch Young Investigators by the Academic Coordinator, Associate Professor Frank Lovicu.
The program aims to give new research students an overview on important issues ranging from Occupational Health and Safety, Ethics, through to Experimental Design and Writing a Thesis. The students were also given a comprehensive outline of the Bosch Core Facilities and training programs available to all Bosch members. To mark the occasion the students were given a Bosch commemorative mug and lanyard.
Pictured: 2008 Intake Bosch Young Investigators including Frank Lovicu.
2008 Bosch Young Investigators Retreat - Kioloa
The 2nd annual Bosch Institute Young Investigators Retreat took place at the Kioloa Coastal Campus of the ANU on February 18 - 20 February. The 30 registrants were predominantly postgraduate students, with some postdoctoral researchers. Six academic staff members, including Des Richardson, Steve Assinder, Donna Lai, Slade Matthews, Renae Ryan and Frank Lovicu, attended as well as two representatives from Questacon, Canberra.
The young investigators were formally welcomed and introduced to the Bosch Institute and what it has to offer over the course of their training. This was followed by short presentations by each of the young investigators, initially as a means of introducing themselves but most importantly providing them with an opportunity to communicate their research projects to a general audience, within a defined time frame (restricted to 2 slides).
The second day presentations focused on career development with strong emphasis on postdoctoral training and the benefits of broadening research knowledge and training, either abroad, interstate or locally. The final session was a workshop on effective communication in science run by Questacon representatives. The day was capped off with a poster session in the late afternoon where students had an opportunity to discuss their work. The prize for the best poster was awarded to Ms Komal Prabhu.
Once again the retreat was a great success thanks to everyone in attendance, and special acknowledgment to the Bosch Young Investigators committee for all their organisation.
Frank Lovicu, BYI Coordinator
European Union Framework
In February 2008 the Bosch Institute hosted a meeting of the European Union Framework 6-supported research programme on “Microparticles in cerebral malaria”. This two year programme is looking at the mechanisms that lead to the often fatal complication of malaria infection called cerebral malaria.
The European Union research programme was initiated by Bosch researcher Professor Georges Grau while he was working in Marseille, France. Before the programme got under way, he was recruited to Sydney to join the Bosch Institute. Laboratories participating in the programme are located in London (UK), Orleans and Marseille (France), Geneva (Switzerland), Blantyre (Malawi), and Yaounde (Cameroon). Professor Nick Hunt, Executive Director of the Bosch Institute, also heads a partner laboratory. Another participant, Dr Laurent Rénia, was originally located in Paris but now heads a laboratory in Singapore.
International Malaria Conference 2008, Victoria
- Professor Nick Hunt
Professor Nick Hunt gave an invited presentation at the Molecular Aspects of Malaria conference in February 2008. This is a major international conference on malaria that is held every four years in Lorne, Victoria.
He spoke about the work from his laboratory that implicates a particular biochemical pathway, the kynurenine pathway of tryptophan metabolism, in causing the life-threatening disruption of brain function that is seen in some malaria patients.
He also discussed collaborative work done in the laboratory of fellow Bosch researcher Roland Stocker that has shown a role for the same biochemical pathway in causing the low blood pressure that is often seen in malaria infections. These findings have implications for the development of new treatments for these dangerous complications of malaria.
Travel Award
Dr Harla Zreiqat’s PhD student Yoghamba Ramaswamy won a travel award from the World Biomaterial Congress for her abstract, which was accepted for oral presentation. Dr Hala Zreiqat is a member of the Bosch Institute and Head of the Biomaterials and Tissue Engineering Research Unit.
Prestigious Fellowship
Dr David Lovejoy is the recipient of a Cancer Institute NSW Early Career Development Fellowship. The Fellowship is for three years (2008 – 2010) and total funds awarded $587,637.
David is a senior researcher in Professor Des Richardson’s Laboratory and works with iron chelators, compounds that bind tightly to iron and prevent it carrying out some key functions in cells. These chelators have exciting properties including the ability to stop cancer cell growth.
David commented “We have designed novel iron chelators for cancer treatment and discovered potent and selective anti-cancer activity of the first generation chelator, Dp44mT, in human tumour cells.”
“This Fellowship will enable clinical development of our highly active agents, which we believe will lead to better clinical outcomes for cancer patients” added David.
Core Facilities Equipment Grants
More success for our Bosch Core Facilities with the award of a NH&MRC grant of $100,000 to assist in the purchase of a 2 photon microscope, and a second grant of $74,907 for the purchase of a plate reader for the new Bosch Molecular Biology Facility in the Blackburn Building. Congratulations to Dr Sam Solomon, Dr Louise Cole, Professor Des Richardson and Dr Donna Lai.
NHMRC Biomedical Fellowship to Helena Mangs
Helena Mangs, a PhD student in Brian Morris' Lab, has been awarded an Australian Based Biomedical Fellowship by the NHMRC for 2008-2012. Her PhD thesis describes her research on novel splicing factors and their interactions. This has included exon arrays to discover splicing targets for one of them. These Fellowships must be undertaken in Lab other than that of the PhD. After taking up the Fellowship she plans to undertake postdoctoral research in the Lab of Prof Des Richardson, Discipline of Pathology, School of Medical Sciences and Bosch Institute.
