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Insulin in a plant seed
An edible plant seed could deliver your insulin or cancer drugs if David Craik’s research progresses as hoped. His team’s work at The University of Queensland’s Institute for Molecular Bioscience centres on cyclotides, which are a family of exceptionally stable circular proteins that occur naturally in many plants, such as violets and petunia.
Inspired by the stability and diversity of natural cyclotides, David’s team has developed a way to join the two ends of a linear protein, allowing them to create ‘designer’ cyclotides that can be incorporated into crop plants, turning them into production factories for therapeutic drugs and insecticides.
In your face: new role found for blood vessels
Blood vessels act as tissue engineers during facial development, guiding the formation of jaw structures in mice, according to research from South Australia.
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Spooky action one. Einstein nil.
Albert Einstein famously dismissed quantum physics as “spooky action at a distance”, but quantum science may have the last word, with researchers in Brisbane and Tokyo finally providing the missing experimental proof.
Leading the quantum computing race
Physicists at the University of New South Wales are leading the race to build computers exponentially faster than any we currently use, according to an assessment published by the scientific journals group, Nature.
Pony Express for quantum messages
Quantum memory has been extended to six hours in an advance that brings the spirit of the Pony Express to quantum communications, raising the prospect of physical transport of ‘read once’ quantum ‘memory sticks’.
Australian crystals clean gas, food, air
Forty per cent of the energy consumed by industry is used to separate things— in natural gas production, mineral processing, food production, pollution control. The list goes on.
Each offers an application for Matthew Hill’s crystals. He has demonstrated that the space inside metalorganic frameworks (MOFs)—the world’s most porous materials—can be used as efficient and long-lasting filters.
By choosing different combinations of metals and plastics, Matthew’s CSIRO team can make a wide range of customised crystals. Then, using antimatter and synchrotron light, they map the internal pores, determine what each crystal can do and explore potential applications.
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.
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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Better tasting bread for China
Murdoch University researchers have discovered how to produce better tasting and higher quality bread using new genome data for wheat grown in Australia.
Bypassing genetic ‘spelling errors’ in muscular dystrophy
A promising treatment for Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) could open the way to therapies for cystic fibrosis, spinal muscular atrophy and other disorders.
Continue reading Bypassing genetic ‘spelling errors’ in muscular dystrophy