EMBL Australia

Artificial intelligence (AI) and its transformative role in life sciences took centre stage at an event featuring EMBL-EBI Director Prof Ewan Birney and jointly hosted by EMBL Australia and Bioplatforms Australia.

Pioneering biotech company Myostellar, led by EMBL Australia leadership team members Professor Peter Currie and Associate Professor Mikaël Martino, has received a $500,000 top-up from CUREator to continue developing new therapies for debilitating muscular dystrophies.

EMBL Australia Group Leader Professor Chen Davidovich has been awarded a $1.15m Australian Research Council (ARC) Future Fellowship to uncover how RNA helps control gene packaging and develop new methods to modify and introduce genes for advancements in biotechnology.

EMBL Australia group leader Professor Chen Davidovich has been awarded a $4m grant to establish an RNA mass spectrometry platform that will advance the local development of RNA therapeutics and enable the earlier detection of diseases, including cancer.

News this quarter:

• EMBL-EBI’s Rolf Apweiler shares thoughts on science in Australia
• PhD Course applications open now
• Discovery to plug billion-dollar drain on health system
• Investigator Grants success
• Future of proteomics in focus
• We need better support for early career researchers
• Mastering CryoET techniques

And more:

• Job opportunities
• Student opportunities
• Training at EMBL
• Upcoming events
• Recent publications

More than 20 researchers from around Australia plunged deep into the world of cryogenic electron tomography (cryoET) at our specialist imaging training course, ‘Freeze, Frame and Focus: Mastering Cryo Electron Tomography’, last month. 

EMBL Australia researchers have unlocked some secrets about the way a protein works to switch genes off, in a discovery that could improve the understanding of how diseases such as cancer progress. The study was published in Nature Genetics.

Dr Rolf Apweiler recently visited Melbourne to speak at the World Health Summit Regional Meeting and a proteomics workshop co-hosted by EMBL Australia. He kindly shared his thoughts with us about the role of EMBL-EBI in the Australian context, opportunities for collaboration and the future of bioinformatics.

EMBL Australia and Bioplatforms Australia joined forces to host a pivotal proteomics workshop titled ‘Future-proofing Computational Proteomics’ on 24 April, featuring leading guest speakers, Dr Rolf Apweiler, Prof Marc Wilkins and Dr Richard Lipscombe.

Members of the EMBL Australia Partner Laboratory Network were awarded more than $6.58 million in NHMRC Investigator Grants to support their outstanding research.