Bulletin

Issue: August/September 2006

News

Medal win shines spotlight on Biochemistry

La Trobe University biochemist, Associate Professor Michael Ryan, has won the 2006 Roche Medal for outstanding achievement in biochemistry or molecular biology. Dr Ryan and his 12 member research laboratory in the Department of Biochemistry focus on mitochondrial biogenesis.

He says mitochondria are the ‘powerhouse’ of cells - essential for cell viability. Mitochondrial defects are associated with diseases ranging from heart, liver and kidney problems to neurological disorders.

The production of mitochondria requires the constant synthesis of specific proteins. Dr Ryan studied a family of proteins, known as molecular chaperones, for his PhD at La Trobe in the early 1990s under the supervision of Professors Peter Høj and Nicholas Hoogenraad, and later at the University of Adelaide.

In 1997 he won an Alexander von Humboldt Research Fellowship and led a research group at the Institute for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology in Freiburg, Germany, where his research focused on the import of proteins into mitochondria in yeast.

Dr Ryan also leads the Biology Group in the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Coherent X-ray Science. Pro Vice-Chancellor Research, Professor Erich Weigold, in congratulating Dr Ryan, noted that PhD graduates of La Trobe’s Department of Biochemistry have now won this award twice in the last three years.

The 2004 medal went to Dr Trevor Lithgow, who also trained in the Hoogenraad laboratory. A former lecturer at La Trobe, Dr Lithgow now works in the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at the University of Melbourne.

Professor Peter Høj also won this award in 1992 while in the Department of Biochemistry at La Trobe. He later moved to the University of Adelaide and is now Chair of the Australian Research Council. A recent member of the Department, Federation Fellow Professor David Vaux, also won the Roche medal in 2000.

Professor Weigold said the Roche Medal wins helped highlight the University’s strength in biochemical and biomedical research, which has developed under Foundation Professor of Biochemistry, Bruce Stone, and continues through the leadership of the current Head of the School of Molecular Sciences, Professor Nicholas Hoogenraad.

The School attracts more than $4 million in outside research grants annually. It offers Medical Sciences and Chemical Science degrees, an immunology subject - and a new Medicinal Chemistry course, informed by its research effort, is being developed.

Dr Ryan will receive his medal and give a plenary lecture at the 1000- delegate ‘ComBio’ Australian Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology combined conference in Brisbane on 26 September.