Science, Technology and Engineering

La Trobe University hosts the Malaria in Melbourne 2004 Meeting (19 October 2004)
The Meeting was a huge success with participants from Melbourne, Brisbane, Sydney and Canberra in attendance.

PhD student Damian Spencer awarded an ASBMB student poster prize at ComBio2004 (30 September 2004)
Damian presented his work in a poster entitled "Cellular effects of DNA adducts formed by the anticancer agent doxorubicin".

Dr Kaye Truscott awarded the InvitrogenT Life Science Award at ComBio2004
(30 September 2004)
The award, sponsored by InvitrogenT, and supported by the ComBio committee and Australian Life Scientist, is awarded to a young Australian researcher who has no more than seven years post-doctoral experience, recognizing their excellence in research. It includes a cash prize or travel grant plus a product credit for the use by the recipient in their research. A review of the recipient's work will also be published in Australian Life Scientist.

Emeritus Professor Bruce Stone awarded The Thomas Burr Osborne Award of the American Association of Cereal Chemists (21 September 2004)
The prestigious Osborne Medal recognizes distinguished contributions in the field of cereal chemistry. Prof. Stone presented an address at the AACC Annual Meeting at which time the medal was presented. Prof. Stone was also accorded the status of AACC Fellow.

Congratulations to Leann Tilley and Marilyn Anderson on being awarded personal chairs by the University (2 August 2004)
Professor Tilley joined the Department in 1989 as lecturer and has made significant contributions to malarial research. Professor Anderson was the second PhD to graduate from the Department. After undertaking various research fellowships, she returned to the Department as Senior Lecturer in 1995. She leads an active group researching plant defense proteins.

Department success at the 3rd Melbourne Protein Group Symposium (29 July 2004)
The Department successfully hosted the 3rd MPG Symposium which went off fabulously well. The science was great and everyone enjoyed themselves. La Trobe Biochemistry won three of the 5 poster prizes on offer. Congratulations to Nicole van der Weerden, Karen Harris and Sarah Frankland. Dr Kaye Truscott and Professor Peter Høj gave fantastic keynote talks and did us proud. Thanks to Professor Leann Tilley, Dr Mike Ryan, Ross Weston, Jacqui Hawdon and Clement Kiu who were absolutely terrific in their organising, chairing and hosting efforts. Well done, guys!

Past academic member of Department becomes new CEO of ARC (22 June 2004)
Professor Peter Høj, who was Lecturer/Senior Lecturer in the Department of Biochemistry from 1989-1994, has now been appointed Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Australian Research Council.

Bernard team block nerve growth inhibitor to fight MS in mice (June 2004)
Claude Bernard and an international team of investigators has found an unexpected role for a brain molecule, and if further research confirms and expands their laboratory findings, this work may provide a new lead for developing better therapies for multiple sclerosis.

Professor Claude Bernard awarded the Bethlehem Griffiths Research Foundation Medal (June 2004)
Congratulations to Professor Claude Bernard for being the recipient of the Bethlehem Griffiths Research Foundation Medal. The trustees were unanimous in their decision to award the Medal to Professor Bernard, thus acknowledging his pre-eminent research in the field of Multiple Sclerosis and Neurosciences.

The Foley lab are using their own unique peptide 'library' containing a thousand million molecular sequences in a project aimed at eliminating anthrax as a potential weapon for terrorists (June 11, 2004)
At the BIO 2004 biotechnology conference in San Francisco, USA, this week Victorian Premier, Steve Bracks, referred to research by La Trobe University scientists that had the potential to create a simple test to detect anthrax spores and protect against their deadly damage. Dr Mick Foley and his team are working with researchers at the CSIRO and the project is being carried out within the national Cooperative Research Centre for Diagnostics, of which La Trobe is a member.

Emeritus Professor Bruce Stone has been presented with an Australian Citation Laureate Award for his contributions to agricultural science (April 2004)
The Award was made by the American company Thompson ISI, a provider of website information,  The awardees were selected on the basis of the number of times their research papers had been cited by other researchers - an accepted objective way of measuring the impact an individual has.