VESKI’s main initiative – to return successful Australian expatriates with outstanding skills in science, technology and design – is paying off with some inspiring work.
In 2004, VESKI’s – Victorian Endowment for Science, Knowledge and Innovation – inaugural Fellow Professor Andrew Holmes returned from Cambridge University to work in a new $100 million Bio21 Molecular Biology and Biotechnology Institute. One of the most important research areas to emerge since has been the development of cheap plastic solar cells.
The University of Melbourne’s Departments of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, and Pharmacology have over recent years identified cone shell venom as a potential treatment for chronic pain in humans.
Researchers continue to develop the research into a commercialised product. One of the venom peptides identified is currently in phase two of clinical trials.
University of Melbourne researchers have isolated a genetic ‘switch’ that can be turned on or off to alter the development of sex cells in plants.
The discovery brings understanding of fertilisation in plants to a new level, and is an important step towards growing greater amounts of food through increased fertilisation of crop plants. Professors Mohan Singh and Prem Bhalla, who head the University’s Plant Molecular Biology and Biotechnology Laboratory in the Faculty of Land and Food Resources, analysed the genetic makeup of white lilies and other flowering plants to identify a germline-restrictive silencing factor (GRSF).
Industry has increased its efficiency from what it was in the past, to the point where its current ecological footprint is a fraction of what it used to be.
Now imagine an industry sector that produces zero waste, is carbon neutral and husbands the earth’s resource endowment for future generations.
Sugarcane is one of nature’s most efficient natural converters of sunlight, carbon dioxide and water into fuel or biomass – and as such, it is perhaps the world’s fastest growing and largest biomass agricultural crop.
Embryonic stem cells from cattle can now be stored in mass in the laboratory, paving the way for advanced breeding developments in dairy cattle and other livestock.
These new ways of efficiently isolating and maintaining cells provide scientists from Australia’s Dairy Cooperative Research Centre with the raw materials to investigate a range of stem cell applications.
Climate change will impose a complex web of threats and interactions on the plants and animals living in the ice-free areas of Antarctica.
Increased temperatures may promote growth and reproduction, but may also contribute to drought and associated effects. These scenarios are explored in a new book, Trends in Antarctic Terrestrial and Limnetic Ecosystems: Antarctica as a Global Indicator, co-edited by Australian Antarctic Division biologist, Dr. Dana Bergstrom.
The strategic planning of open pit mining projects that span several decades is critical to achieving maximum project value.
To address this issue, BHP Billiton Global Technology has developed a mine planning optimisation software tool called Blasor™. By using optimal mine planning software, strategic planners can now determine ultimate pit sizes and pit development plans that deliver maximum value over the life of the mine.
