EMBL Australia

EMBL Australia group leader Professor David Lynn will be the interim director of a new $7 million state-of-the-art centre for genomics in South Australia that he played a vital role in championing.

Professor David Lynn is an EMBL Australia Group Leader, based at the South Australian Health and Medical Research Institute (SAHMRI), and a Flinders University Professor.

EMBL Australia group leader Max Cryle has provided a new understanding of Glycopeptide antibiotics (GPAs) biosynthesis that allows new GPAs to be made and tested in the laboratory - a vital step in the quest to develop new antibiotics to keep pace with the ever-evolving ‘superbugs’ that threaten global public health.

An opinion article by EMBL Australia Scientific Head Professor James Whisstock (published in The Herald Sun on 13 May 2020) calls for a national approach for funding a diversity and depth of scientific research we hope we might never need.

EMBL Australia group leader Professor Eduardo Eyras has developed a general-purpose tool to study how cells function in a common type of brain tumour, but that could also be applied to other tumours and diseases. The research was published in Nature Communications.

News this quarter:

• Fish school by randomly copying each other, not the group
• Travel grants: a ticket to Europe, news ideas, networks & more
• Major cell network mapping reveals rewiring in colorectal cancer
• Grant to investigate the function of circular RNAs in the brain
• 3D-printed microscope makes sensitive disease diagnosis more accessible
• Applications closing for annual EMBL Australia PhD Course

And more:

• Job opportunities
• Upcoming events
• Recent publications
• Student opportunities

PhD student Ebony Monson received a $2000 EMBL Australia travel grant last year, which helped with her ticket to Europe, new networks, potential collaborations and a whole lot of new ideas for the future direction of her novel research.

EMBL Australia group leader Dr Robert Weatheritt was co-awarded a $470,000 ARC Discovery Project grant to study the biogenesis and function of circular RNAs in the brain. The exciting international collaboration begins later this month.

An international team of researchers, co-led by EMBL Australia group leader Dr Richard Morris, has revealed the mechanisms behind fish schooling – and what they found differs from what scientists had previously thought.

In 2019, the EMBL Australia Partner Laboratory Network continued to expand, with the addition of three new research groups. We trained hundreds of PhD students in the life sciences through various student programs, strengthened international linkages and our researchers were awarded a number of highly competitive grants, made innovative discoveries and published many high-impact papers.