An international collaboration jointly led by EMBL Australia Group Leader Dr Maté Biro (hosted at the University of New South Wales Node in Single Molecule Science) and EMBL Australia's first alumnus, Dr Nicolas Plachta of A*STAR in Singapore, has resulted in the discovery of a process during mammalian embryonic development that is critical for early embryos to develop into healthy blastocysts. The research was published in the journal Cell in March 2018.

An NHMRC Project Grant will assist Group Leader Mikaël Martino in engineering the second generation of growth factors, while postdoc Dr Qi Zhang wins an ARC DECRA fellowship.

EMBL Australia Node Head Scientia Professor Katharina Gaus has received the Khwarizmi International Award for her achievements in single-molecule imaging at an award ceremony in Tehran.

Prof Gaus – who leads the Single Molecule Science Node at the University of New South Wales – was one of five foreign laureates named by the Iranian Research Organization for Science and Technology at a ceremony attended by Iranian President Hassan Rouhani last week.

More than 200 delegates gathered to learn about the cutting edge of bioinformatics and computational biology research from a variety of top international and local speakers at the Australian Bioinformatics & Computational Biology Society (ABACBS) national conference and the Combine Student Symposium, held at SAHMRI in Adelaide in late 2017 and chaired by EMBL Australia Group Leader, David Lynn.

News this quarter:

• Max Cryle awarded fellowship to battle antimicrobial resistance
• Edwina McGlinn and Maté Biro awarded ARC Discovery Project grants
• Harald Janovjak is a ‘Scientist to Watch’
• EMBL Australia researcher awarded a Victoria Fellowship
• David Lynn on the importance of incentivising Open Science
• Aussie contingent shines at EMBL PhD Symposium

And more:                                                            

• Upcoming events
• Recent publications
• Get to know EMBL Australia Group Leader Mikaël Martino

Associate Professor Edwina McGlinn and Dr Maté Biro have each been awarded grants for their respective projects investigating genome structure and regulation and biological mathematics.

The Australian Research Council (ARC) Discovery Project grants will provide three years of funding, commencing in 2018.

Thirteen talented Australian PhD students were given the "invaluable opportunity" to attend the 19^th EMBL PhD Symposium in Germany thanks to EMBL Australia travel grants.

Postdoctoral research fellow Dr Jennifer Payne has been awarded a prestigious Victoria Fellowship to expand her work using cutting-edge techniques to develop new treatments to battle the antibiotic-resistant ‘superbug’.

Congratulations to EMBL Australia Group Leader Associate Professor Max Cryle, who has been awarded a Career Development Fellowship from the National Health and Medical Research Council. 

News this quarter:

• Our Partner Laboratory Network is expanding and we’re looking for new group leaders
• Nobel Laureate imparts lessons in perseverance to PhD Course students
• Antibiotic insight may help in battle against ‘superbugs’
• EMBL Australia PhD Course: 60 students, 57 presenters, 10 big days
• EMBL alumni in Australia come together for the first time
• PhD student’s imaging app impresses at VIZBI

And more:

• Upcoming events
• Jobs at EMBL Australia