Events

Dr Joshua Powell from Texas A&M University will describe the carbonization of several zirconium-based MOFs and structural analysis of the metal species present in the resulting MOF-derived carbons.

Professor Wuhan Xiao from the Institute of Hydrobiology at the Chinese Academy of Sciences will be presenting "Oxygen potentiates antiviral innate immunity by sustaining EGLN1-catalyzed proline hydroxylation of IFR3."

Associate Professor Liraz Chai from the Institute of Chemistry at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem,
Israel, will share the soft matter and biological perspectives of biofilms, focusing on the properties of water, ECM, and metal ions.

Associate Professor Joanne Jamie and Dr Ian Jamie from the School of Natural Sciences, Macquarie University, Sydney, will share how research that started with looking at the chemistry of bush medicines in partnership with Yaegl Country Elders, progressed to the multi-award-winning National Indigenous Science Education Program (NISEP)

Professor Michelle L Coote from the Flinders Institute for Nanoscale Science & Technology, Flinders University, will present some of her group's recent progress in both electrochemical and electrostatic catalysis of organic reactions.

Prof Jason McLellan, Welch Chair in Chemistry and Professor of Molecular Biosciences, The University of Texas at Austin, will discuss his and his colleagues' work on designing key proteins that form the basis of several vaccines now in clinical trials against the coronavirus, as well as separate proteins used in vaccines against respiratory syncytial virus, a virus especially dangerous for young children and seniors.

Assoc Prof Max Cryle from Monash University's Biomedicine Discovery Institute will present the results of his group's investigations into the utility of peptide crosslinking P450 enzymes from biarylitide biosynthesis to generate a range of cyclic tripeptide species.

Associate Professor Cryle from the Biomedicine Discovery Institute at Monash University will report the recent discoveries of his group that provide fundamental insights into non-ribosomal peptide synthesis (NRPS). This includes understanding the mechanism and selectivity of key peptide synthesis and amino acid selection domains, which are common to all NRPS assembly lines and central to their function. He will also detail our efforts to reconstitute enzymatic crosslinking during glycopeptide antibiotic maturation, which is a highly challenging chemical transformation that limits our ability to produce new members of this important class of clinical antibiotics through chemical synthesis. Throughout this presentation, he will further discuss the importance of integrating chemical synthesis into engineering strategies for these complex biosynthetic pathways.

Dr Nasim Amiralian, leader of the Bio-inspired Materials research group at UQ will give an overview of the fundamental aspects of nanocellulose production and applications in several different industries including nanocomposites, biomedical technologies, water treatment, and flexible electronics. 

Dr Benjamin Dalton from the Department of Physics, Freie Universität Berlin, Germany, will present his groups work on understanding how the local activity of molecular motors enable coherent spindle-scale microtubule flows and organisation.

The 18th Annual Symposium is organised by and for SCMB's research (HDR, PGCW and Honours) students. Other UQ research students of all levels and staff are welcome to attend the oral and poster presentations, equipment displays and listen to talks presented by some of SCMB top researchers.

Dr Deborah Burnett's, from the Garvan Institute of Medical Research, presentation will focus on using sophisticated humanised mouse models, next-generation sequencing and antibody repertoire exploration to better evaluate vaccines at the pre-clinical stage, allowing for enhanced selection of vaccine candidates resulting in translational and commercial success.

Associate Professor Veysel Kayser from the University of Sydney will provide a summary of the current state-of-play of the development of monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) as well as other antibody-based therapies and provide new advancements mainly from the group's lab.

Dr Illing from the Biomedicine Discovery Institute, Monash University, will present her team's success on applying mass spectrometry-based epitope discovery workflow to characterise peptides naturally presented by HLA-I on the surface of influenza and SARS-CoV-2 infected cells.

Professor Heidi Drummer, Program Director Program Director for Disease Elimination at the Burnet Institute in Melbourne, will present her latest work on developing a universal prophylactic vaccine against HCV.

Associate Professor Jessica Mar from AIBN, UQ, will discuss her group's studies which focus on the shape of gene expression distributions, specifically shape diversity, and how they reveal new insights into biology.

Professor Leann Tilley from the Bio21 Institute, University of Melbourne, will present her latest research on the mechanisms of action of and resistance to the antimalarial artemisinin, as well as the potential for a newly-discovered series of nucleoside sulfamates as agents against malaria and a broad range of infectious diseases.

Dr Kathryn Kemper, a quantitative geneticist from The Institute of Molecular Biosciences, will discuss her work on estimating the genetic influence on within-person variability for traits such as height and weight; and the relationships between longitudinal trait change and outcomes including musculoskeletal disease and all-cause mortality.

This Women in Science event focuses on the career progression of Level A and B female academics in STEM. Panellists include Professor Tilley form the Bio21 Institute, University of Melbourne, Professor Melissa Brown, the Executive Dean of the Faculty of Science, and a range of early- and mid-career researchers from a variety of disciplines, regarding how they have risen to the challenges of pursuing a research career in science

This is a mini-symposium and Q&A event where Prof Maree Toombs and Dr Jeremy Tarry, two of UQ's Indigenous academics, will discuss their experiences of being Aboriginal academics.

Dr Julie Pearce from the UQ Centre for Natural Gas will discuss the feasibility of CO2 geological storage in the Surat Basin, QLD.

Dr Claudia Simm from Monash University will present results from conducting a phenotypic screen against Candida species using compounds of the Medicines for Malaria Venture (MMV) Pathogen box.

Dr Laura McKemmish from the School of Chemistry, UNSW, will discuss teaching computational chemistry and programming for chemists.