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2015

Chocolate and iron for speedy drug delivery

Natural phenols, such as those found in chocolate, and minerals such as iron are being used to develop fast, economical drug-delivery capsules.

Frank Caruso is creating nano-packages for drug delivery. Credit: Richard Timbury, Casamento Photography
Frank Caruso is creating nano-packages for drug delivery. Credit: Richard Timbury, Casamento Photography

Frank Caruso and his team at The University of Melbourne are making nano-sized capsules that will encase vaccines and protect them from being broken down when entering the body. They believe that this delivery system will be biologically friendly and overcome a major challenge for medical materials: their compatibility with living systems.

One of the challenges of treating diseases such as cancer and HIV is delivering treatment with minimal damage to healthy areas.

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2015

Where did the antimatter go?

Antimatter has been disappearing and Melbourne researcher Phillip Urquijo wants to know why.

Phillip Urquijo—looking for missing antimatter. Credit: Casamento photography
Phillip Urquijo—looking for missing antimatter. Credit: Casamento photography

He’s hoping that the Belle II experiment, commencing in Japan in 2017, will give him an answer—and if he’s lucky it will answer many other questions about the beginning of the Universe too.

“What I hope we’ll discover is clear evidence of new quarks, leptons or other force-carrying particles,” says Phillip. “And I’d be really excited if we found a new kind of Higgs particle using this indirect approach.”

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2015

The genetics of epilepsy: bringing hope to families

Sam Berkovic and Ingrid Scheffer have changed the way the world thinks about epilepsy, a debilitating condition that affects about 50 million people.

The Hon Tony Abbott, PM, with recipients of the 2014 Prizes, credit: Prime Minister’s Prizes for Science; Ingrid Scheffer and Sam Berkovic revealed the underlying genetic element of many epilepsies. Credit: Prime Minister’s Prizes for Science/WildBear
The Hon Tony Abbott, PM, with recipients of the 2014 Prizes, credit: Prime Minister’s Prizes for Science; Ingrid Scheffer and Sam Berkovic revealed the underlying genetic element
of many epilepsies. Credit: Prime Minister’s Prizes for Science/WildBear

Twenty years ago doctors tended to regard most forms of epilepsy as acquired rather than inherited. In other words, they believed epilepsy was mostly due to injury: the result of things like a crack on the head in a car accident, a bad fall in the playground, a tumour, or something having gone wrong in labour. Parents felt responsible and the resulting guilt was enormous.

The two clinician-researchers from The University of Melbourne have led the way in finding a genetic basis for many epilepsies, building on their discovery of the first ever link between a specific gene and a form of epilepsy. Finding that answer has been of profound importance for families.

Along the way, Sam and Ingrid discovered that a particularly severe form of epilepsy, thought to result from vaccination, was actually caused by a gene mutation. This finding dispelled significant concerns about immunisation.

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2014, L’Oréal For Women in Science

Clean water with crystals

Dr Cara Doherty, materials scientist, CSIRO, Melbourne

Dr Cara Doherty (credit: L’Oréal Australia) Cara Doherty is developing new technologies that could transform water filters, batteries and medical sensors, and clean up carbon emissions. And it all comes down to holes and surface area.

She has a vision for a new manufacturing industry for Australia. She works with crystals that are packed with… nothing. They’re highly porous sponges—down to a molecular level—and can be customised to absorb almost any molecule.

These crystals are metal–organic frameworks (MOFs). They can be challenging to make. And it’s also difficult to determine which crystal will be good for which job. But it’s even harder to deploy the crystals—to put them in the right place to do useful work.

Cara uses antimatter (positrons) and synchrotron light (X-rays) to measure the crystals and their properties. Then she uses her patented technique to imprint useful shapes for devices.

With the help of her L’Oréal For Women in Science Fellowship she will investigate how to take the next step: to develop the 3D structures that would be needed for a smart water filter.

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2014

Typhoid tips off new epidemic approach

A typhoid outbreak in Kathmandu has provided new insights into bacterial epidemics and antibiotic resistance, thanks to a Melbourne scientist’s genomic research.

Kathryn Holt. Credit: L’Oréal Australia/sdpmedia.com.au

Kathryn Holt, of the University of Melbourne’s Bio21 Institute, used genome sequencing to discover that an epidemic of deadly typhoid bacteria in Nepal’s capital city was driven by climate, and not by the outbreak of novel genetic strains.

Her research, published in the Royal Society journal Open Biology, changes our understanding of how typhoid spreads and how we can better respond to other bacterial epidemics.

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2014

Infrared gets under dragon skin

Bearded dragons are revealing some of the secrets behind their colour-changing ways, thanks to the work of a Melbourne evolutionary scientist.

Devi Stuart-Fox with a bearded dragon. Credit: L’Oréal Australia/sdpmedia.com.au

Devi Stuart-Fox has discovered that bearded dragons change colour in response to heat, allowing them to regulate their body temperature.

Her research opens the way for scientists to imitate lizards and develop materials that respond to light and temperature for solar energy, sensor and biomedical applications.

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2014

Gastro discovery leads to worldwide vaccine rollout

Fifty million children in the world’s poorest countries will be vaccinated against the deadly rotavirus by 2015, thanks to the breakthrough work of a quiet Melbourne researcher.

Ruth Bishop. Credit: Stepping Stone Pictures

Ruth Bishop’s rotavirus discovery led to the development of the vaccine currently being rolled out by the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunisation—and to her declaration as 2013 CSL Florey Medal winner.

Each year, around half a million children die from rotavirus infection and the acute gastroenteritis it causes.

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2014

Vitamin B reveals the role of mystery gut immune cells

An accidental discovery by Melbourne researchers has revealed the purpose of ‘mystery’ immune cells in the gut, shown how our immune system interacts with the complex bacteria ecology found there, and opened new paths for drug discovery.

T cell activation by transitory antigens. Credit: Jeffrey Mak, University of Queensland

Our guts, lungs and mouths are lined with mysterious immune cells that make up to 10 per cent of the T cells in our immune system. These immune cells, known as mucosal-associated invariant T cells (MAITs), detect reactive intermediates in the synthesis of vitamin B2 (riboflavin) that is made by many invasive bacteria and fungi.

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2014

Shine on you tiny diamond

Tiny diamonds have been used to track single atoms and molecules inside living cells.

Photo: Lloyd Hollenberg’s team are using a nanodiamond sensor to explore inside a living human cell. Credit: David Haworth, University of Melbourne

A University of Melbourne team has developed a device that uses nanoscale diamonds to measure the magnetic fields from a living cell’s atoms and molecules, with resolution a million times greater than current magnetic resonance imaging.

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2013, L’Oréal For Women in Science

When killing saves lives: our immune system at work

Dr Misty Jenkins, Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre, Melbourne

Misty-Jenkins-700x500 Dr Misty Jenkins spends a lot of her time watching killers at work: the white blood cells of the body that eliminate infected and cancerous cells. She can already tell you a great deal about how they develop into assassins and arm themselves. Now with the support of her L’Oréal For Women in Science Fellowship Misty is exploring how they become efficient serial killers—killing one cancer cell in minutes and moving on to hunt down others. Her work will give us a greater understanding of our immune system and open the way to better manage T cells to defeat disease.

Misty’s career so far has been quite a journey for a girl from Ballarat. Along the way she been mentored by Nobel Prize-winning immunologist Prof Peter Doherty and become the first Indigenous Australian to attend either Oxford or Cambridge. Now working with Prof Joe Trapani as a National Health and Medical Research Council  (NHMRC) postdoctoral fellow in the Cancer Cell Death laboratory at the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre in Melbourne, Misty has been awarded a $25,000 L’Oréal Australia and New Zealand For Women in Science Fellowship. She will use the money to further her study of what triggers T cells to detach themselves from their targets and seek additional prey.
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