Our Previous award winners

ATA Scientific would like to thank all those that participated in our November 2014 Travel Award promotion. Our winner was selected by a panel from the Organising Committee of the Australasia Extracellular Vesicles conference, Cairns, 20-21 Nov 2014 where the winner was announced.

Congratulations to Dr Shu Wen Wen (QIMR Berghofer Medical Research Institute, Tumour Microenvironment Laboratory) for winning our Young Scientist Travel Award. The award includes a $2000 contribution for travel costs to attend the International Society of Extracellular Vesicles (ISEV) annual meeting, ISEV2015, 23-26 April, 2015 in Washington DC, USA

The Tumour Microenvironment Laboratory at the QIMR Berghofer Medical Research Institute focuses on how specific processes between cancer cells and surrounding non-tumour stromal cells influence carcinogenesis and its metastasis to distant organs. In particular, work aims to understand how low oxygen (hypoxic) environments and other stress conditions, changes the physiology between tumour cells and stromal cell lineages. The team aim to understand the role of hypoxia to generate receptive secondary metastatic sites. This research enables novel therapies to be generated as well as diagnostic and predictive markers to improve the outcomes of breast and lung cancer patients.

Dr Shu Wen Wen joined the Tumour Microenvironment Laboratory headed by Dr Andreas Moeller at the QIMR Berghofer Medical Research Institute, as postdoctoral researcher to continue her interest in leading metastasis research. “My research focuses on how cancer cells communicate with other parts of the body by the secretion of the small particles called exosomes. These exosomes act as messengers from the cancer to alter the behaviour and function of other cells to ultimately enhance cancer growth. Exosomes released by cancer cells represent a novel therapeutic target for cancer patients” said Dr Shu Wen Wen.

Below is a copy if the winning abstract to be presented at the ISEV 2015 conference.

“Tissue distribution of breast cancer-derived exosomes and their immune suppressive effects.

Shu Wen Wen1, Melanie Becker1, Jaclyn Sceneay1, Christina Wong1, Andreas Moller1,2 1 QIMR Berghofer Medical Research Institute 2 University of Queensland

Metastatic disease is responsible for over 90% of cancer-related deaths. Tumour progression and its systemic spread are highly dependent on the communication between cancer cells and their surrounding stroma. To date, much remains unknown about the tissue distribution of tumour-derived exosomes and their role in immunomodulation, which are important parameters defining their therapeutic potential.

To firstly understand the biodistribution of exosomes, we used optical imaging for the longitudinal tracking of exosomes derived from a highly metastatic murine breast cancer cell line (E0771) in syngeneic mice. Intravenously administered, fluorescently-labelled exosomes accumulated predominately in the lung, as well as in the spleen and bone marrow within 24 hours and up to 72 hours after injection. High specific uptake of fluorescently-labelled exosomes was particularly observed in CD11b+/Gr+ myeloid cells in the lung and lower uptake observed in CD4+ and CD8+ T-cells in the diffe rent tissues as assessed by flow cytometry. CD11b+/Gr+ cells display the characteristics of immune-suppressive Myeloid-derived Suppressor Cells (MDSCs), which we have previously shown to be modified by tumour-secreted proteins in the formation of a pre-metastatic niche. Additionally, by characterising the composition of organ-specific immune cell lineages, we identified a significant reduction in CD4+ and CD8+ T-cell populations of mice treated with breast cancer exosomes. This was accompanied by increased CD11b+/Grmed and CD11b+/Grhigh in the lung. Dose-dependent suppression of T-cell proliferation and function was further confirmed by in vitro co-culture experiments. Proteomic analysis found tumour-derived exosomes were enriched for TRAIL, B7-H4 and galectin 9, which can promote T cell apoptosis and decrease proliferation. In addition to suppressing T-cell-mediated anti-tumour functions, tumour-derived exosomes had a direct inhibitory effect on Natural Killer (NK) cell cytotoxic ity as demonstrated by chromium release assays. Taken together, our findings provide a first insight into the tissue-specific distribution of breast cancer-derived exosomes and their contribution to immune suppression by limiting T-cell and NK cell function.

This data suggests that the immune-suppressive functions of exosomes are potential targets of novel anti-cancer therapeutics in breast cancer. Additionally, it provides insights into the implications of tumour-derived exosomes for current and pre-clinical immunotherapies.”

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ATA Scientific hosted the ‘SPIN TO WIN” Young Scientist travel prize at the 40th Lorne Protein Structure and Function conference (8-12 Feb 2015). The response to game was truly welcoming with over 140 people including students and academic staff tempted to spin. Many participants received a number of practical giveways as they spun the wheel. Consolation prizes included wine, torches and timers. As expected though, the most prominent and sought after prize to be won on the board was our $2000 Young Scientist Travel Award.

Ultimately, there were 15 participants that were eligible for Round 2 during the game from which 3 people progressed to the final round. With an exhilarating finish, the audience watched with anticipation as the $2000 slot went round and round, sometimes clicking over to the next empty slot at the last millisecond! Then finally with a sigh of relief the winner was rewarded!

Congratulations to PhD student, Ms Ashleigh Paparella, University of Adelaide, Department of Biochemistry – winner of the $2000 Travel Award ‘Spin to Win’ Prize!

Ashleigh is studying under the supervision of Associate Professor Grant Booker at the University of Adelaide, School of Biological Sciences. Ashleigh’s PhD research is focused on a metabolic enzyme from Staphylococcus aureus called Biotin protein ligase and its potential as an antibiotic drug target. The research lab utilises a variety of techniques including SPR, enzyme inhibition assays, x-ray crystallography and NMR spectroscopy to investigate potential enzyme inhibitors. ” This travel ward will allow me to attend an international conference and to pursue potential post-doctoral opportunities overseas’.

The ATA Scientific Young Scientist Travel Award, which was started in 2011, was set up to offer young scientists financial assistance to further their education and to attend scientific conferences and meetings around the world. Over the past 4 years ATA Scientific have awarded the Young scientist travel prize to more than 20 winners from multiple Universities and research organisations around Australia and New Zealand. For more information regarding our award or to enter the next promotion contact us or visit our webpage at www.atascientific.com.au/eventsandtraining/awards.

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ATA Scientific would like to thank all those that participated in our July 2015 Encouragement Award promotion.

This time we received over 130 entries, all of which deserved to win! Responses covered a wide range of topics, from health to the environment, reflecting the challenges facing the world today. After several hours of reading each entry in an attempt to find a winner, we quickly realised that this was not going to be an easy task.

Therefore, we had no choice but to increase the total number of prizes to give away!

Despite our limited resources, we decided to increase the total prize pool to $3000 and awarded 5 prizes instead of 3 – first prize at $1000 and 4 runners up at $500 each. We hope that these awards will give our young talented researchers a helping hand to continue their work in building essential scientific knowledge

Congratulations to our first prize winner, Mr Morteza Aramesh, final year PhD student at the University of Melbourne, School of Physics. Morteza is studying under the supervision of Professor Steven Prawer, Diamond Program Manager at the School of Physics Experimental Condensed Matter Physics (ECMP).

Morteza’s research interests are focused on the fabrication and development of sensors for detection of biomolecules such as cancer biomarkers. This research will be particularly beneficial to those patients who are at risk of the recurrence of some cancers after chemotherapy where early detection is vital.

“Most of my time is spent thinking about new methods for the early detection of cancers with the hope to save many lives”.

Morteza plans to use his award to assist with his overseas travel expenses to attend the NanoBioTech conference in Switzerland in November, where he will present his work. This award comes at a crucial time for Morteza as his PhD nears completion and his scholarship has run out.

Congratulations to our first runner up, Ms Azadeh Mirabedini, PhD Chemistry student at the University of Wollongong. Azadeh works under the supervision of Prof Gordon Wallace, Director of the Intelligent Polymer Research Institute and Dr. Javad Foroughi ARC Research Fellow at University of Wollongong.

Azadeh’s PhD research is focused on developing biocompatible electroactive coaxial fibres with great potential to be used instead of the damaged nerves following an occurrence of a nerve injury. Many challenges exist in developing implantable fibres which simulate the electrical and mechanical properties natural nerves. To determine the usefulness of these fibrillar structures in real conditions, in vivo studies need to be performed. Therefore Azadeh plans to travel Manchester University where specialised state-of-the-art equipment will provide an exceptional opportunity to implant the synthetic polymeric fibres in animal trials. Azadeh plans to use her award to travel to the Diamond and Carbon Materials Conference in Germany in September this year.

“ This travel award will allow me to arrange a visit to Manchester University and will probably be helpful to pursue potential post-doctoral opportunities”.

Congratulations to our second runner up, Mr Thomas Nicholls, PhD student under the supervision of both Assoc. Prof. Michael Gardiner and Dr. Alex Bissember , School of Physical Sciences- Chemistry, University of Tasmania.

Thomas’s PhD research is concerned with the preparation and the study of a range of copper(I) complexes and investigating the applications of these systems as visible light photocatalysts (VLPs) in organic synthesis. The identification of VLPs, which utilise cheap, earth abundant first-row transition metals, is particularly attractive given that currently the most commonly employed metal-based VLPs rely on the reactivity of expensive and toxic heavy metals.

Thomas plans to use his award to assist with his travel expenses to Curtin University in Perth where he plans to use highly specialised instrumentation not yet available at the University of Tasmania.

“ The experience and training I will gain from Dr Massi (Curtin University) and access to key instrumentation will be invaluable to my own research and my research group more generally, as it offers the chance to bring back knowledge and expertise not presently available in this school”.



Congratulations to our third runner up, Dr Linda Armbrecht, recent PhD graduate under the supervision of Dr Leanne Armand, Department of Biological Sciences and Climate Futures, Macquarie University.

Linda’s interests are focused in the field of geobiology and ancient microbial DNA research. She is particularly interested in long-term changes in phytoplankton community structure and phytoplankton adaptations to environmental conditions during times of climate change.

The award will enable Linda to attend the Advanced Bioinformatics workshop for early career researchers, 9-13th November, 2015, at the Australian Centre for Ancient DNA, Adelaide. This workshop is an intensive 5 day hands-on training course tutored by international experts, utilising the latest available software for the analysis of Next Generation Sequencing (NGS), Genomics and Metagenomics data.

“Receiving an ATA Young Scientist Encouragement Award at this early stage of my scientific career will mean a key step in my professional and academic development”.

Congratulations to our fourth runner up, Ms Yao Lulu Xing, PhD candidate in the Multiple Sclerosis Division at the Florey Institute of Neuroscience and Mental Health, the University of Melbourne.

“This award will provide the critical first step towards attaining my career goals”.

Lulu is currently finishing up her PhD, which focuses on the role of endogenous neural stem cells in repairing the damage associated with multiple sclerosis (MS). She is interested in understanding the relative contribution of two distinct stem cell populations to myelin repair. She has also developed a novel mouse model, which offers a new approach to study the interactions between these two populations. These studies could have major implications for optimising regenerative strategies in MS patients.,

Lulu plans to use this award to attend the 25th International Society for Neurochemistry (ISN) Biennial Meeting in Cairns, Australia, August 23-27, 2015, in conjunction with the Australasian Neuroscience Society (ANS).

We would like to thank all those that participated. The next Travel Award for 2015 will be posted on our website soon.

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ATA Scientific would like to thank all those that participated in our recent Encouragement Award promotion.

Once again, we received a wide range of very high quality responses and have spent a number of hours considering every entry in an attempt to find a winner. As with our previous award, we have increased the total number of prizes to give away! The total prize pool of $3000 was divided into 4 prizes – first prize at $1200 and 3 runners up at $600 each. We hope that these awards will give our young talented researchers a helping hand to continue their work in building essential scientific knowledge.

Congratulations to our first prize winner, Mr Rohit Ranganathan Gaddam, PhD student at the University of Queensland, School of Chemical Engineering. Rohit is studying under the supervision of Professor George Zhao and Dr. Ashok Kumar Nanjundan. Rohit’s interests are focused on the synthesis of carbon materials from sources which are naturally available, non-toxic and affordable that will ultimately enable energy storage to be both easy and convenient.

“The ATA Scientific award is encouraging me to pursue my research in this field”.

Rohit plans to use his award to assist with his overseas travel expenses to attend a suitable conference next year.

 

Congratulations to our first runner up, Amy Cohen, third-year Medicine PhD student in the Department of Pathology at the University of Sydney. Amy works under the supervision of Professor Georges Grau, Chair of Vascular Immunology at the University of Sydney, and Dr. Valery Combes, Senior Lecturer at the University of Technology, Sydney.

Amy’s PhD project examines the pathology of cerebral malaria, in order to learn more about how it is fatal and to prevent and/or treat this. Amy hopes to continue working in the field of infectious diseases research following the completion of her PhD, and also to continue teaching others about immunology and infectious disease research and the importance of studying diseases like malaria in order to one day find a cure and hopefully eradicate this serious disease.

Receiving this award will greatly benefit her research, by allowing her to attend the international malaria meeting, “Molecular Approaches to Malaria” to be held in Lorne, Victoria in February 2016.

This conference will host experts in malaria research, and give her a chance to present to, receive feedback from, and network with colleagues, world experts, and potential collaborators or future employers – providing invaluable experience both during her PhD and afterwards, furthering her career in medical research.

Congratulations to our second runner up, Ms Shu Jie Lam, PhD candidate in the Polymer Science Group at the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, The University of Melbourne. Shu works under the joint supervision of Prof. Greg Qiao and A/Prof. Neil O’Brien-Simpson.Shu’s PhD project is focused on investigating the potential of synthetic peptide-based complex nanostructures as novel antimicrobial agents.

“Antibiotic resistance in bacteria has reached alarming levels in many parts of the world, whereby common infections, such as pneumonia, sepsis and diarrhea, in some settings have become refractory to available treatment options. As almost 70% of current-day infections are caused by antibiotic-resistant bacteria, there exists an urgent need for the development of novel antimicrobial agents that are capable of overcoming antibiotic resistances. To date, I have successfully developed a new class of macromolecular peptide-based antimicrobial agents with demonstrated potential as potent antibacterial agents with superior biocompatibility”.

In August this year, Shu gave two presentations at the 250th American Chemical Society National Meeting and Exposition held at Boston, USA. Her travel was partially self-funded. Shu has decided to use this award to reimburse the expenses incurred throughout her travel.

“I would like to offer my sincere gratitude to ATA Scientific for supporting my travel as it was a professionally rewarding experience and served as a stepping stone to my future career as an academic and research scientist”.

Congratulations to our third runner up, Karen Steffi Cheung Tung Shing, first year of PhD student at the Structural Biology Laboratory at St Vincent’s Institute of Medical Research. Steffi works under the supervision of Professor Michael Parker.

The focus of Steffi’s project is to investigate the interactions between the Beta-common receptor with various protein partners, as well as developing inhibitors to the receptor. Several diseases, such as leukaemia, have been linked to aberrant signalling originating from the Beta-common receptor. Hence, understanding its biological mechanisms and inhibiting the receptor would represent a potential treatment to these diseases. Steffi aspires to become a structural biologist, while acquiring a range of skills as diverse as possible.

“The ATA Young Scientist Encouragement Award will help me in attending interstate conferences in 2016, where I will be learning about the most recently developed techniques, thus building up to a life-long set of skills that would be important for my future career as a structural biologist”.

We would like to thank all those that participated. The next Travel Award for 2016 has been posted on our website.

For more information or to stay informed of other upcoming promotions please ‘Like us” on Facebook or contact us.

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ATA Scientific would like to thank all those that participated in our June 2016 Encouragement Award promotion.

Once again, we received a wide range of high quality responses, all of which were deserving winners. Three distinctive posters were selected to receive our award– first prize at $1500 and 2 runners up at $600 each. We hope these awards will give our young talented researchers a helping hand to continue their work in building essential scientific knowledge.

Congratulations to our first prize winner, Ms Chathurika Perera, PhD student at Macquarie University, Department of Environmental Sciences. Chathu is studying under the supervision of Professor Damian Gore.

Chathurika’s project is focused on Phytoremediation, a cost effective, environmentally friendly technology that can play a vital role in reducing soil erosion, contaminant dispersal and restoring the ecology at mined or industrial contaminated sites. Phytoremediation also enables habitat to be provided for birds, insects and other animals concurrently with remediation outcomes. Chathu is using multiple analytical techniques during her project including XRF spectrometry for elemental determinations of bulk samples, and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) for imaging and finding where plants store metals at the cellular level. This study will find plants that allow effective and sustainable treatment of sites contaminated with a range of metals such as copper and cadmium, and metalloids such as arsenic.

“I want to become an environmental scientist working in the area of water quality, which is increasingly important given global changes in population and environmental degradation”.

Chathurika plans to use the award to present her research at the EGU (European Geoscience Union General Assembly) meeting in Vienna, Austria from 23-28th April 2017.

The EGU Assembly is one of the largest and most prestigious geoscience meetings in the world and it covers all disciplines of the Earth and planetary sciences. Participating in the EGU Assembly will provide Chathu with a forum to meet other scientists, including early career researchers, and discuss her work with experts in all fields of geoscience.

A copy of the winning poster can be downloaded here.

Congratulations to our runner up, Ikechukwu Anthony Ike, third year PhD student from Chemical Engineering in the Institute for Sustainability and Innovation, Victoria University. Anthony is studying under the supervision of Prof Mikel Duke and Prof John Orbell.

Anthony’s research centres on novel applications of iron based materials in wastewater treatment, harnessing the unique magnetic and catalytic properties of iron in an attempt to resolve the key problems of fouling and energy inefficiency in membrane water treatment processes. Anthony hopes to continue working in the area of wastewater treatment after his PhD as he considers this field of research critical for the sustainability of any modern economy.

“The Encouragement Award will help me to attend the 9th International Membrane Science and Technology Conference (Adelaide, 5-8 December 2016) which I expect would afford me additional opportunity to interact and network with other researchers and stakeholders in wastewater treatment to further my research career”.

 

 

 

Congratulations to our runner up, Ms Hannah Glover, third year PhD student working under the supervision of Dr Michael Morris at Sydney University. The lab studies embryonic stem cells and aims to understand the processes governing amino-acid mediated stem cell differentiation to neural cells. Hannah’s project focuses on understanding the mechanism of the amino acid, L-Proline, in regulating cell fate and cellular characteristics involved in regulation of pluripotency and differentiation.

“After myPhD, I would love to pursue a postdoc overseas in the field of tissue engineering”.

Hannah plans to use her award to help her travel to two conferences in the US – Crossing Boundaries to propel tissue engineering into the clinic at Stanford University, CA on September 12-14th and From Stem Cells to Human Development, in Southbridge, MA in September 25-28th 2016”.

We would like to thank all those that participated. The next Travel Award for 2016 will be posted on our website soon.

For more information or to stay informed of other upcoming promotions please ‘Like us” on Facebook or contact us.

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ATA Scientific would like to thank all those that participated in our October 2016 Encouragement Award promotion.

The topic of our latest competition was focused on the development of Artificial Intelligence. The overwhelming number of responses received on whether this is an exciting or frightening concept demonstrated a very clear message – we’re living a story of epic proportions and the future is ours to seize. The prospect that one day we may be able to co-evolve with silicon based machines is very powerful. Whether we like it or not, AI is already part our lives and will continue to play a role into the future. Thank you to all those that participated in our competition and sent in their entries.

Three entries were selected to receive our award– first prize at $1500 and 2 runners up at $600 each.

Congratulations to our first prize winner, Dr Kim Van Netten, Research Associate, at the University of Newcastle, School of Engineering . She and L/Prof Galvin are currently working on applying the process developed during her PhD for minerals processing.

Kim’s project is focused on selectively agglomerating ultrafine hydrophobic particles from water and hydrophilic particles using a novel hydrophobic binder. The application is in the field of mineral processing, where the valuable, metal containing particles need to be separated from the particles of lesser value. The group have developed a special binder that can achieve this selective separation in less than a second producing agglomerate which can be recovered using a screen. They now hope to implement this process on a continuous basis and scale up for use in industry.

“I plan to use the award to attend an industry based conference or workshop because I feel it is extremely important to establish and maintain communication with people in the field so I can learn from their experience and about the challenges they face”.

Congratulations to our runner up, Dr Michal Bartnikowski, who completed his PhD earlier this year at Queensland University of Technology, Institute of Health and Biomedical Innovation. Michal works under the supervision of A/Prof. Travis Klein, in the Cartilage Regeneration Laboratory, at IHBI, Queensland University of Technology.

Michal is currently working on developing engineering solutions to suit an array of medical issues. His research centres on tissue engineering of the musculoskeletal system and the characterisation of biomaterials for use in novel treatment applications. He is interested in targeting systems in a proactive manner, implementing preventative or early-stage interventions rather than developing treatments to reduce symptoms.

“It is my current career aspiration to move my focus to an increasingly proactive or preventative approach, ideally reaching a point where I am able to contribute to an improvement of biological systems above that of baseline health”.

Michal plans to use his award to purchase essential laboratory equipment for his research.

Congratulations to our runner up, Miss Claire Storey, PhD student from La Trobe University, Department of Physiology, Anatomy and Microbiology. Claire is studying under the supervision of Professor Paul Fisher.

Claire’s research centres upon establishing a simple Alzheimer’s Disease model in the social amoeba Dictyostelium discoideum.

“I am delighted to have even been considered for the award! I am looking forward to building a career as a research scientist, hopefully in the field of neuroscience.”

Claire will use the award to contribute to the costs of attending a scientific conference during the coming year.

Claire Storey is standing on the far right, next to supervisor Professor Paul Fisher.

We would like to thank all those that participated. The next Travel Award for 2017 will be posted on our website soon.

For more information or to stay informed of other upcoming promotions please ‘Like us” on Facebook or contact us.

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