Special seminars
Special seminars are usually presented by invited guest lecturers. Times and locations of these seminars will vary. Members of the public are welcome to attend at no charge. To join our Seminars and Conferences mailing list email: .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).
Monday, 13 February 2012
The use of p53 as a tool for cancer therapy
Dr Jean-Christophe Marine
VIB Laboratory for Molecular Cancer Biology, KU Leuven, Belgium
Chris Marine received his PhD from the University of Liège, Belgium. Dr Marine was a Howard Hughes postdoctoral fellow with Professor James Ihle at St Jude Children’s Research Hospital, Memphis and a Marie-Curie postdoctoral fellow with Professor Pier-Giuseppe Pelicci at the IFOM-IEO in Milan, Italy. Dr Marine became a VIB Group leader in 2004 and has recently been appointed Professor at the University of KU Leuven, Belgium. He has been the recipient of a number of national and international prizes and awards and was elected EMBO Young Investigator in 2006.
His lab aims at understanding how genes that have been implicated in cancer control fundamental cellular processes, such as cell death and senescence in normal cells, and how mutations that disrupt these processes impact tumor development and therapy outcome. His approach harnesses the power of genetics, and he devises and exploits mouse and primary cell culture models to study cancer gene function in vivo.
Time: 2:00pm
Host: Professor David Huang
Where: Cory Theatre, GTAC
Tuesday, 14 February 2012
Deconstructing p53 pathways in vivo using mouse models
A/Professor Laura Attardi
Dept of Radiation & Cancer Biology, Stanford University, USA
Associate Professor Attardi's research seeks to better define the mechanisms by which the p53 protein carries out its functions in apoptosis, growth arrest, and tumor suppression, using the mouse as a model system. While p53 has been extensively studied in cultured cell lines, we believe that studying it in primary cells derived from the mouse as well as in the mouse where tumor suppression can be examined, will yield the most physiologically relevant results regarding its function.
Associate Professor Attardi's approach utilises either p53 knock-in mutant mice to investigate the role of particular p53 activities, or p53 target gene knockout mice to examine the function of specific p53 target genes in p53 pathways of action in vivo; to decipher the molecular activities relevant for p53 action in different contexts and to define transcriptional networks responsible for mediating p53 activity in tumor suppression.
Time: 10:00am
Host: Professor David Huang
Where: Melb Brain Centre Auditorium
Wednesday, 15 February 2012
Kuru: the science and the sorcery
Professor Michael Alpers
Centre for International Health, Curtin University, WA
Professor Michael Alpers is a John Curtin distinguished Professor of International Health. He has spent much of his working life carrying out field studies in rural communities in the tropics, in which the communities themselves participate. Such studies have been multidisciplinary in design, with cultural and behavioural as well as clinical, epidemiological and laboratory aspects. He has spent 45 years studying kuru and is a member of the Australian Transmissible Spongiform Encephalopathies Advisory Committee.
Professor Alpers has a strong commitment to community health and equity in health in an international context. He has long been an advocate for the integrated study of human biology in the broadest sense as a basis for understanding human behaviour and human diseases. He is currently a Member or Fellow of 30 professional societies and associations. His research interests include prion diseases, malaria, respiratory diseases (pneumonia, asthma), virus diseases of the tropics and filariasis.
Professor Alpers was appointed an Officer of the Order of Australia for his service to medical science in the fields of international tropical medicine and public health, research on the disease kuru and contributions to improving health and economic development in Papua New Guinea.
In 2008, Professor Alpers was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society, an honour bestowed upon few Australians.
Time: 1:00pm
Host: Director’s Lecture - Professor Doug Hilton
Where: Cory Theatre, GTAC
Monday, 20 February 2012
Some like it hot - Biomolecule Analytics using Microscale Thermophoresis (MST)
Dr Jan Griesbach
NanoTemper Technologies GmbH, Germany
The presentation gives an overview on a new technology for the measurement of biomolecule interactions that is termed Microscale Thermophoresis (MST). The term Microscale Thermophoresis refers to the directed movement of molecules in optically generated microscopic temperature gradients. This thermophoretic movement is determined by the entropy of the hydration shell around the molecules. Almost all interactions between molecules and virtually any biochemical process are linked to a change in size, charge and/or conformation of molecules which alter this hydration shell and therefore can be detected and quantified by MST. Microscale Thermophoresis allows quantification of binding affinities of proteins, nucleic acids and small molecules as well as measurement of enzymatic activities. In addition also functional studies of small molecule inhibitors are possible. The steep microscopic temperature gradient is generated by an IRLaser, which is strongly absorbed by water. The readout method of the interaction analysis is based on fluorescence: fluorescently labeled proteins/peptides/nucleic acids can be used as well as proteins expressed with GFP/YFP/RFP. In this presentation we will describe the technical details and the benefits of the Microscale Thermophoresis technology platform. We will show examples for interaction measurements ranging from protein – ribosome, protein – protein, small molecule – receptor down to protein – ion binding studies to experiments where the interactions between receptors incorporated in vesicles and soluble proteins are analyzed.
After the seminar there is the possibility to measure various samples on the Monolith NT.115 instrument.
If you are interested in testing your own samples or have questions, please contact: Hendrik (.(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address); x2104)
Time: 9:30am
Host: Dr Hendrik Falk
Where: L6W Meeting Room
Wednesday, 29 February 2012
Immune modulation of vertebrate regeneration
Professor Nadia Rosenthal
Director, Australian Regenerative Medicine Institute, Scientific Head, EMBL Australia, Monash University
Born in the USA, Professor Nadia Rosenthal obtained her PhD in 1981 from Harvard Medical School and trained as a postdoctoral fellow at NIH, then directed a biomedical research laboratory at Harvard Medical School, and served for a decade at the New England Journal of Medicine as editor of the Molecular Medicine series. In 2001 she moved to Rome to head the EMBL Mouse Biology Unit, and holds a Professorship of Cardiovascular Science at Imperial College London. She is an EMBO member, with numerous awards and honors including the Ferrari-Soave Prize in Cell Biology and Doctors Honoris Causa from the Pierre and Marie Curie University in Paris and the University of Amsterdam. She spearheaded the election of Australia to EMBL as its first Associate Member, and in 2008 she founded the Australian Regenerative Medicine Institute at Monash University, which serves as Headquarters for the EMBL Australia Partner Laboratory Network. She is an NH&MRC Australia Fellow.
Professor Rosenthal’s research focuses on muscle and cardiac developmental genetics and the role of growth factors and stem cells in tissue regeneration, with over 100 primary research articles and prominent reviews in high impact international journals, including two stem cell reviews for Scientific American. She has attracted sponsored research funding from major pharmaceutical companies including Amgen, Genzyme and Novartis for her translational studies in stem cell and regenerative medicine.
Time: 12:00pm
Host: Women in Science Lecture Series/Gender Equity Committee
Where: Cory Theatre, GTAC
Wednesday, 29 February 2012
Two issues relevant to how new knowledge is generated: the process for allocating NHMRC project grants; and the strange organisation of universities
Nicholas Graves PhD
Professor of Health Economics, School of Public Health and Institute for Health & Biomedical Innovation, Queensland University of Technology
Abstract: Nicholas Graves has a diverse research program in applied health economics, ranging from managing risk of health-care acquired infection to evaluating interventions that improve diet and exercise choices. Recently he has become interested in how we generate new knowledge and will focus on two topics in this talk. The randomness and high costs associated with the process used to allocate research funding using NHMRC data as a case study. And the strange and heavily bureaucratic way that Universities organise themselves and the losses to research output.
BIO: Nicholas Graves is a health economist at QUT and is developing Health Services Research in Queensland. His applied research brings economics to the study of health-care acquired infection, screening for chronic and infectious diseases and interventions that change health related behaviours. He has published in good journals like Nature, JAMA, BMJ, AIDS, Emerging Infectious Diseases, Clinical Infections Diseases and Health Economics. He has been successful winning research funding from NHMRC, ARC, National Institutes of Health and the CRC programme. His methodology interests are modelling skewed data, especially length of stay in hospital and factors associated with long stays; how decision makers value health care costs and weight economic evidence, and the impact of different perspectives on decision making. He is also interested in quantifying the role of randomness and cost in allocating research funding. Bayesian methods are a good fit for much of this activity. He manages a research team and supervises PhD students.
Time: 1:00pm
Host: Director’s Lecture - Professor Doug Hilton
Where: Cory Theatre, GTAC
Wednesday, 21 March 2012
Molecular targeted therapy for childhood cancer
Professor Michelle Haber AM
Children’s Cancer Institute Australia
Prof Haber graduated with a PhD from the School of Pathology, UNSW, in 1984, and subsequently undertook post-doctoral positions at the Hadassah Hebrew University, in Israel and the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, New York.
Following her PhD, Prof Haber was appointed as a staff scientist at CCIA. She is currently Head of the Institute’s Experimental Therapeutics Program and was appointed Director of CCIA in 2000 and subsequently Executive Director in 2003. Haber is known for her world-class research into the treatment of neuroblastoma and Acute Lymphoblastic Leukaemia in children.
In 2007, Prof Haber was awarded an Order of Australia for her services to science in the field of research into childhood cancer, to scientific education, and to the community, and was also awarded a Doctor of Science by the University of New South Wales. She is currently President of the Advances in Neuroblastoma Research Association (ANRA).
Time: 1:00pm
Host: Women in Science Lecture Series/Gender Equity Committee
Where: Cory Theatre, GTAC
Wednesday, 21 March 2012
The fattening and sweetening of hematopoietic stem cells: Effects on monocyte production and atherosclerosis
Dr Andrew Murphy
Post-doctoral Research Fellow, Molecular Medicine, Dept of Medicine, Columbia University, USA
Dr Andrew Murphy completed his PhD at Baker IDI Heart and Diabetes Institute in 2008. His research during his PhD largely focused on the anti-inflammatory actions of high density lipoproteins on monocytes and neutrophils. In 2009 he commenced a post-doctoral fellowship in Prof Alan Tall's laboratory at Columbia University in New York. Since joining Prof Tall's group he has been studying the role of hematopoietic stem cells in cardiovascular disease and diabetes. He is particularly interested in the mechanisms underlying the production of monocytes and neutrophils and how sheer numbers of these cells contribute to the progression or inhibit the regression of atherosclerosis.
Time: 4:00pm
Host: Professor Ian Wicks
Where: Cory Theatre, GTAC
Thursday, 22 March 2012
Gene regulatory control of entry into the T-cell developmental pathway
Professor Ellen Rothenberg
Division of Biology, California Institute of Technology, USA
The Rothenberg group studies the molecular mechanisms that are responsible for developmental lineage choice as hematopoietic stem cells differentiate into T lymphocytes. The research focuses on identifying the transcription factors and signaling events that induce T-lineage gene expression in an uncommitted precursor and determining how they work to force the cell to relinquish other developmental options. Recent work highlighted the function of Bcl11b in T cell lineage commitment (Li et al. Science (2010).
Ellen Rothenberg received her Ph.D. from Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where she studied in the laboratory of David Baltimore. In 1982, she moved to the California Institute of Technology, Division of Biology, where she is the Albert Billings Ruddock Professor of Biology. She has won several teaching awards at Caltech and has also taught internationally in advanced courses on immunology, developmental biology, and gene regulatory networks. She has been honored by membership on a number of institutional Scientific Advisory Boards, organizing committees for multiple international conferences in immunology and systems biology, and the Editorial Boards of several immunology journals.
Time: 1:00pm
Host: Dr Stephen Nutt
Where: Cory Theatre, GTAC
Wednesday, 18 April 2012
Working towards an integrated research platform
A/Professor Peter Gibbs
Laboratory Head, Colorectal Cancer Biomarkers Laboratory, Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research; Medical Oncologist, The Royal Melbourne Hospital and Western Health; Clinical Director, BioGrid Australia
Background: BioGrid Australia Limited is a leading data sharing technology company providing a secure infrastructure that advances health research by linking privacy-protected and ethically approved data among a wide network of health collaborators. BioGrid links health data across institutions, jurisdictions and diseases to assist clinicians and researchers improve their research and clinical outcomes. Through BioGrid, researchers and health planners have easier access to over 200,000 privacy-protected patient records as well as tools and support to facilitate standardised research data collection, linkage and analysis to improve research and treatment outcomes.
BioGrid Australia is a not-for-profit organisation, owned by 26 collaborators representing 42 hospitals and research organisations across five states and territories. Created by clinicians for clinical research, BioGrid provides a web-based infrastructure to connect and access health data in a privacy-protected and ethically approved way.
Presentation: This 45-minute presentation will give an overview of BioGrid and its current collaborators, how to analyse and present your project data utilising BioGrid as well as examples of how BioGrid has facilitated research to improve clinical outcomes.
Speakers & Biographies: A/Prof Peter Gibbs is a colorectal oncologist based at the Royal Melbourne Hospital, Western Hospital and the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research, Parkville. He has an interest in all aspects of colorectal cancer, and has over 90 publications in clinical and basic research. Since 2003 he has been a leading figure in BioGrid Australia, with a particular focus on driving national data collection related to colorectal cancer, but has also been integral to expansion across other tumour streams.
Peter is joint head of the Ludwig colorectal cancer biomarkers laboratory, where a specific using analysis of the data collection supported by BioGrid, and tissue collected by the Victorian Cancer Biobank, to undertake comprehensive analysis of predictive and prognostic biomarkers in this disease. This work is extensively supported by funding and collaborative programs with industry, along with grants from Ludwig Institute, the Victorian Cancer Agency, NHMRC and AACR.
A/Prof Gibbs is also a leader in colorectal cancer clinical trials, including being the chief investigator for two international phase III studies. Both of these products, selective internal radiation therapy (SIRT) and the HyACT technology of Alchemia, have originated from Australian research and A/Prof Gibbs has in both instances been involved from phase I through to the current phase III trials. He is also extensively involved in multiple other colorectal cancer clinical trials.
Time: 1:00pm
Host: Clinical Translational Seminar/A/Professor Clare Scott
Where: Charles La Trobe Theatre, RMH
Monday, 30 April 2012
Genes, mechanisms, and intervention in autoimmune diabetes
Professor John Todd
Cambridge Institute for Medical Research, Cambridge University, UK
Our aim is to further characterise the molecular basis for the autoimmune inflammatory disease type 1 (insulin-dependent) diabetes. We use an integrated combination of genetics, in large collections of type 1 diabetic families and case/control, statistics, genome informatics and data mining, and gene expression and functional studies. Our major effort now is to correlate susceptibility genotypes with biomarkers and phenotypes e.g. we have correlated cellular levels of the interleukin-2 receptor with the genotypes of the IL-2RA gene that are associated with type 1 diabetes susceptibility. This is a first step towards identifying disease precursors that could be used in the evaluation of future therapeutic studies. To achieve this we have helped build a local biobank of healthy volunteers in whom we can study the effects of disease-associated genotypes (The Cambridge BioResource: http://www.cambridgebioresource.org.uk/), funded by the National Institute for Health Research Cambridge Biomedical Research Centre. Our research efforts are part of the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation/Wellcome Trust Diabetes and Inflammation Laboratory (DIL), which includes the laboratories of Linda Wicker and David Clayton, as well as collaborations with the Department of Haematology (Willem Ouwehand), the Department of Paediatrics (David Dunger), and the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute.
Time: 1:00pm
Host: Professor Len Harrison
Where: Charles La Trobe Theatre, RMH