EMBL Australia has continued to thrive as a research organisation with strong local and international linkages. In 2016, the Partner Laboratory Network almost doubled in size, with four new and promising early-career researchers establishing their laboratories at our existing host institutes and more institutes coming on board, and we continued to strengthen ties between the international and Australian research communities.

EMBL Australia Group Leader Associate Professor Cryle co-led a team of researchers who have identified a key part of the process by which a common clinical antibiotic is formed – a finding that could potentially pave the way for novel compounds to tackle the problem of bacterial resistance. With 'superbugs' responsible for around 700,000 deaths globally a year, new types of antibiotics are urgently needed.

The EMBL Australia group is growing, with two renowned research institutes – the Garvan Institute of Medical Research and QIMR Berghofer Medical Research Institute – joining our Partner Laboratory Network.

News this quarter:

• Ancient DNA expert Professor Alan Cooper to give public address at the EMBL Australia PhD Course on 12 July 2017
• Swiss researcher Dr Harald Janovjak announced as a new EMBL Australia group leader
• Join EMBL for their first alumni event to be held in Australia
• EMBL’s Head of Electron Microscopy Core Facility, Dr Yannick Schwab, will present at EMBL Australia’s PhD Course
• Gaus group researchers have developed a sensor to measure membrane charges in live cells
• The Davidovich group has further enhanced our knowledge on how genes are regulated

And more:

• Student opportunities
• Upcoming events
• Job opportunities

Opportunities are available for students interested in the EMBL Australia PhD Course, travel grants for PhD students and postdoctoral fellows and financial support for the 19th EMBL PhD Symposium in Heidelberg.

Dr Yannick Schwab, team leader and head of electron microscopy core facility at EMBL, will travel from EMBL Heidelberg to join us and 60 first and second-year PhD students at the EMBL Australia PhD Course in July at Monash University.

Alex Ma, Katharina Gaus and their colleagues have developed a fluorescence membrane charge sensor (MCS) that reports changes in electrostatic interactions at the inner leaflet of the plasma membrane in live cells.

Professor Alan Cooper, the 2016 South Australian Scientist of the Year and prominent ancient DNA researcher, will give a plenary address to the students at our PhD Course in July.

His passion for regenerative medicine has seen him work all over the world and now Dr Harald Janovjak is bringing his expertise to EMBL Australia as a group leader based at the Australian Regenerative Medicine Institute at Monash University either later this year or in early 2018.

In collaboration with an assembly of highly recognised international scientists, EMBL Australia group leader Chen Davidovich and Nobel Laureate Thomas Cech (Howard Hughes Medical Institute and University of Colorado at Boulder) have discovered how a gene-suppressing enzyme recognises genes product.