The long-term survival chances of patients with breast cancer plummet if the cancer recurs or spreads to other parts of the body in the process known as metastasis.
Breast cancer cells visualised with antibodies recognising E-cadherin (red) or vimentin (green). The cell nuclei are visualised with a DNA-binding stain (blue). Credit: Cletus Pinto & Rhiannon Coulson, St Vincent’s Institute
So the National Breast Cancer Foundation recently funded a five-year, $5 million National Collaborative Research Program to investigate metastasis and discover potential drugs to stop or slow it. The EMPathy Breast Cancer Network program was also charged with finding ways of diagnosing metastasis before it occurs. The research is highly dependent on the latest sequencing technology and demands the massive computer power and sophisticated data handling techniques of modern bioinformatics. Continue reading Supercomputer probes cancer crisis point→
Imagine a mobile phone, gaming gadget or laptop with a battery that never needs replacing, or electric cars powered by batteries that are as fast to recharge as it is to refill your car with petrol.
Neeraj Sharma prepares a sample battery in the glove box. Credit: ANSTO
Researchers at the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation (ANSTO) are unlocking the secret inner workings of lithium ion (Li-ion) batteries to develop better, safer portable power. Continue reading Tracking lithium for better batteries→
Australia’s scientists are among the most productive in the region. That’s the picture that emerges from the Nature Publishing Index 2011 Asia-Pacific released in March 2012
AUSTRALIA RANKS THIRD IN THE ASIA-PACIFIC REGION IN TERMS OF PUBLICATIONS IN NATURE GROUP JOURNALS. CREDIT: NASA VISIBLEEARTH.NASA.GOV
Australia ranks second only to Singapore in terms of science output per capita and per scientist in the Index, which measures the publication of research articles in Nature research journals by Asia-Pacific nations and institutions. Singapore and Australia are also first and second in the Asia-Pacific respectively in terms of GDP per capita. Continue reading Australian science’s place in Asia→
New lubricants containing star-shaped polymers have hit the market, thanks to Australian polymer technology. Lubrizol Corporation has launched the first commercial products developed using CSIRO’s Reversible Addition Fragmentation chain Transfer (RAFT) polymer synthesis process.
Asteric ™ Viscosity Modifiers are tailor-made star-shaped polymers made possible by RAFT Credit: Lubrizol
CSIRO chemist Dr Ezio Rizzardo says the RAFT process allows much greater flexibility and potential for polymer synthesis, compared with conventional methods. “Conventional polymerisation is a relatively simple process with two ingredients: large amounts of monomer and a small amount of an initiating agent. You apply heat; a chain reaction starts and runs to completion, making polymer chains that can have widely varying lengths.” Continue reading Star-shaped polymers boost engine performance→
A chance finding has led to the first new chlorophyll discovered in 67 years, opening up possibilities for biofuel and food crops to use sunlight more efficiently.
2011 Life Scientist of the Year Min Chen. Credit: Prime Minister’s Science Prizes/Bearcage
Queensland scientists are helping radiologists to spot the more subtle signs of breast cancer, using computer tools and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI).
Photo: Contrast-enhanced MRI of a breast. Credit: Yaniv Gal
Currently MRI allows radiologists to detect lumps or other growths by creating a 3D anatomical image of the breast.
Prof Stuart Crozier and his team at the University of Queensland have developed a computer tool that improves MRI detection by spotting more subtle indicators of cancer.
“When cancers are just starting to form, they form abnormal blood vessels very early, to feed their rapid cell division,” Stuart says.
“By seeing how certain contrast agents move through the tissue, we can pick up the formation of these blood vessels.”
Photo: Research Assistant Michael Wildermoth works with the software that shows how certain contrast agents move through breast tissue. Credit: Kim Nunes
This works towards solving two issues with conventional MRIs.
First, it should reduce the number of false positive results and therefore the number of women put through biopsies of benign tumours.
Second, this should catch tumours earlier, not just when tumours are big enough to discern visually.
“The goal is to assist radiologists to identify areas of cancer risk that may not be obvious on conventional images,” Stuart says.
Stuart, a Fellow of the Australian Academy for Technological Sciences and Engineering (ATSE), was recently presented with a 2012 Clunies Ross Award for his contributions to the engineering of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) technology.
The research, funded as an Australian Research Council’s Discovery Project, is now undergoing trials with 140 women at private radiology firm Queensland X-ray.
Photo: Contrast-enhanced MRI of a breast.
Credit: Yaniv Gal
Photo: Research Assistant Michael Wildermoth works with the software that shows how certain contrast agents move through breast tissue.
Credit: Kim Nunes
The Universe is definitely getting bigger, faster—and astronomers using the Anglo-Australian Telescope in NSW have confirmed it.
The WiggleZ survey looked at over 200,000 visible galaxies (centre), but also gave insights into dark matter (the green grid that deforms the gravity field) and dark energy (the purple grid). Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltec
The results are now in for WiggleZ, a survey of the night sky, spanning 200,000 galaxies and billions of years of cosmic history.
“This puts a nail in it. Clearly the universe is accelerating, and clearly there is something like dark energy,” says Prof Matthew Colless, director of the Australian Astronomical Observatory and a member of the WiggleZ team. Continue reading Massive galaxy survey confirms accelerating Universe→
The Murchison Widefield Array is a telescope with no moving parts. Credit: David Herne, ICRAR
Far outback in Western Australia, 32 tiles—flat, stationary sensors—each carrying 16 dipole antennas have begun collecting scientific data.
These first tiles will ultimately form part of a much bigger array of 512 tiles, the Murchison Widefield Array (MWA)—Australia’s second Square Kilometre Array (SKA) demonstrator project. Like CSIRO’s Australian SKA Pathfinder (ASKAP), the MWA is being built at the remote, radio-quiet Murchison Radio-astronomy Observatory (MRO). Continue reading Telescope of tiles→
The world’s largest telescope, the Square Kilometre Array (SKA), is expected to generate more data in a single day than the world does in a year at present. And even its prototype, CSIRO’s ASKAP, is expected to accumulate more information within six hours of being switched on than all previous radio telescopes combined.
Such gargantuan streams of data require serious management, and that will be one of the jobs of the $80 million iVEC Pawsey Centre in Perth, which is due to be completed in 2013.
The planned Pawsey High-Performance Computing Centre for SKA Science in Perth (photo credit: Woodhead/CSIRO)
The energy of ultra-high energy (UHE) cosmic rays that strike the Earth’s atmosphere make the energy produced from particle collisions by the Large Hadron Collider look puny. A team based in South Australia is now developing the techniques and technology to find out where such energetic particles could possibly originate. They ultimately hope to use the proposed SKA telescope to conduct their search.
“We think some cosmic rays are produced in the remnants of supernovae—exploding stars—but where the most energetic ones come from, that’s a mystery,” says Justin Bray, a PhD student hunting for their source as part of the LUNASKA (Lunar Ultra-high-energy Neutrino Astrophysics using SKA) project led by Ray Protheroe at the University of Adelaide and Ron Ekers at CSIRO. Continue reading Tracing cosmic rays from radio pulses→
Hundreds of Aussie science achievements that you can share in speeches, posts and publications
