Bosch Institute News - October to December, 2008
Micrograph of the Year Competition
One of the highlights of the year at the Advanced Microscopy Facility was the Micrograph of the Year Competition. This competition was open to all Bosch members and registered users of the Facility. This year the competition was judged by Assoc. Prof. Cedric Shorey. He was astounded by the high standard of images submitted for the competition. Almost 60 images were received this year illustrating a wide variety of biological samples, cell and tissue preparation methods and both light and laser microscope techniques. The Top 20 micrographs were mounted and displayed in the Anderson Stuart Common Room during the week of the Bosch Young Investigators (BYI) Symposium in December.
At the conclusion of the BYI Symposium, the Top 5 winners (images shown above) were presented with fabulous prizes that were generously donated by the Bosch Institute, Carl Zeiss, Nikon and Coherent Scientific, Olympus Australia and Perkin Elmer.
The winners were (corresponding to images L-R above):
First Prize: Yan Li (Human Reproduction Unit, Royal North Shore Hospital)
Second Prizes: Nick Whitehead (Physiology, Bosch Institute), Andrea Markus (Basic & Clinical Genomics Lab, Physiology, Bosch Institute) and Erica Jeong (Anatomy, Bosch Institute).
Third Prize: Hyunchul Lee (Physiology)
Well done to all who entered the Competition!
Successes for our Executive Director
Professor Nick Hunt gave a Plenary presentation at the Society for Free Radical Research (Australasia) conference in Melbourne in December 2008. He discussed his laboratory's work on immunity against infectious agents and, in particular, malaria.
Nick also was given an Award for Distinguished Services to the Society. This was only the fourth such award in 20 years.
Bosch Young Investigators Symposium 2008
The VIIIth Annual Bosch Young Investigators Symposium was held on December 16 in the Eastern Avenue Complex, University of Sydney. The day was heralded another great success with 20 oral presentations from postgraduate students and postdoctoral researchers, with an additional 46 poster presentations following in the Anderson Stuart Building.
A highlight of the day was the formal announcement of the Bercovici, Hunter and Rebecca L Cooper Prize winners by the Head of the School of Medical Sciences, Prof. Chris Murphy. These annual medals and prizes are awarded for excellence in published research. Daniel Getts received the postgraduate Bercovici Prize, Danile Vagg the John Irvine Hunter Research Prize.
The Rebecca L Cooper postdoctoral prize was awarded to Dr. Rita Machaalani. For the first time, recipients of the Bercovici and Cooper prizes presented their published work to close the platform sessions.
Each year a number of different prizes are also awarded on the day, for outstanding oral and poster presentations and for 2008 these awards were presented by Associate Professor Frank Lovicu, who has taken on the role of academic coordinator for the School and Bosch Young Investigators for the past six years. This years award recipients and congratulations go to Dr Rosemary Siafakas, Dave Krimmer, Lisa Lo, Nazanin Ghazanfari and Lisa Nivison-Smith. In addition, awards were presented for outstanding Bosch posters at the recent ‘Cell to Society’ Health Sciences meeting in Leura. Congratulations go to Tan Sirivanta, Komal Prabhu and Cho Soe. An outstanding achievement by all.
The Symposium was well supported through sponsorship and trade displays by 12 companies to whom we are most grateful. These included: Bioscientific, Bio-Rad, Integrated Sciences, John Morris Scientific, Leica Microsystems, Merck, Millipore, Pathtech, Promega, Quantum Scientific, Sapphire and SDR Clinical Technology.
Finally, congratulations must go to the Bosch Young Investigator Committee for their effort in coordinating such a successful day - Alfonso Argueta, Mel Barron, Aaron Camp, Katie Dixon, Giti Haddadan, Dave Krimmer, Sam Merlin, Komal Prabhu, Vanessa Sequeira and Vic Thiru.
Mel Barron
New Honorary Life Governor of Prince of Wales Medical Research Institute
Professor Roger Dampney of the Nervous System, Senses and Movement Research Theme has been made an Honorary Life Governor of the Prince of Wales Medical Research Institute at the University of NSW, after retiring as the NHMRC representative on the Board of the Institute. He has served on the Board for a period of 13 years.
Congratulations Roger!
Diabetes Australia Research Trust Grant
Congratulations to Dr Paul Witting and Dr Neil Hime (Cardiovascular Research Theme) for being awarded Diabetes Australia Research Trust grants.
Congratulations Donna!
Awarded the Best Operational Plan at the NSW Enterprise Workshop 2008
Bosch Molecular Biology Officer, Dr. Donna Lai, recently attended a four-month mentor-based business training program, the NSW Enterprise Workshop. She worked with four people from biotechnology company Neomedix System, NSW Clinical Trial Business Development Centre and Commonwealth Bank to develop a business plan to take a revolutionary medical diagnostic device to the world market.
This program is a hands-on, practical program that deals with real business. She was the project manager of the team. Their final business plan earned them an award for the best operational plan.
Redox Biology Group - Grant Success
Dr Paul Witting of the Cardiovascular Research Theme recently joined Bosch and the School of Medical Sciences with his Redox Biology Group.
As well as his CIA grant success in DART this year, Paul also is CIB on a new ARC Grant ($810 K, 2009-2013) with Dr Hugh Harris (University of Adelaide) and CIC on a successful NHMRC grant with John Wheatley and Terry Amis (Westmead Hospital) ($570 K, 2009-2011).
Paul's student Shane Antao was successful in gaining an NHF PhD scholarship (co-funded with the Stroke Foundation).
Invited Presenters at the Medical Research Congress, Brisbane, November 2008
Dr Helen Ball from the III Research Theme gave an invited presentation at The Mutagenesis and Experimental Pathology Society of Australasia as part of the Australian Health and Medical Research Congress held in November in Brisbane. She spoke about her discovery of a new enzyme, indoleamine 2,3 dioxygenase-2, which may be involved in the functioning of the kidney.
In addition, Professor Roland Stocker from the Cardiovascular research theme was invited to talk at the Congress, and conducted a symposium titled "A Radical Approach to Pharmacology: Resources, Detection and Inhibition of Oxy-radicals in Cardivascular Health and Disease."
Congratulations - Dr Aaron Camp on Postdoctoral Travel Grant
Dr. Aaron Camp from the Laboratory of Vision and Cognition in Nervous System, Senses and Movement Research Theme has been awarded a postdoctoral travel grant from the CASS Foundation ("Contributing to Australian Scholarship and Science").
Aaron will be attending the Society for Neuroscience annual meeting in Washington D.C. in November. He has also been invited to give a presentation at City University New York (CUNY) and at the University of Western Ontario.
Society for Free Radical Research (International) Conference, Beiging - Invited Presenters - Professors Roland Stocker & Nick Hunt
Professors Roland Stocker and Nick Hunt gave scientific presentations about their research at the Society for Free Radical Research (International) Conference in Beijing, China, in October 2008. Roland talked about his exciting work on the involvement of a molecule called haem oxygenase-1 in cardiovascular disease. Nick talked about his laboratory’s work on the factors that cause severe illness in malaria.
Professor Nick Hunt, Executive Director
- An invited presenter at the Scientific Conference, Washington DC
Professor Nick Hunt gave an invited presentation to the Scientific Conference held jointly by the Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA) and the Interscience Conference on Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy (ICAAC) in Washington DC in October 2008. This is an enormous conference with 13,500 scientific attendees that discusses issues to do with established and emerging infectious diseases and their impacts on human health. In his opening address to the conference, Dr Antony Fauchi of the National Institutes of Health, USA, pointed out that infectious diseases cause 25% of the 57 million deaths in the world each year. In the 0 – 49 year age bracket, infection is the leading cause of death.
Nick talked about his laboratory’s work on cerebral malaria, a life-threatening complication of malaria infection that causes many deaths each year, particularly in young children in Africa. By understanding the biological mechanisms that lead to the disruption of brain function in some cases of malaria, new treatment targets may be identified.
Later on this same trip, Nick addressed a meeting of the Baltimore-Washington Malaria Interest Group at Georgetown University in Washington on a different aspect of his malaria studies. He then went on to Philadelphia where he gave a presentation at the Lankenau Institute about his laboratory’s work on indoleamine dioxygenase. This enzyme plays an important role both in reproduction and in control of the immune system. During 2007, Dr Helen Ball in the laboratory identified a new form of this molecule called indoleamine dioxygenase-2 that seems to have some interesting properties relevant to both the normal healthy body and certain diseases.
