Young Poppies stand tall

21 October 2005

The outstanding achievements of our young scientists were celebrated at NSW Parliament House on Thursday 20 October. Four UNSW academics received 2005 NSW Young Tall Poppy Science Awards. Established in 2000 the awards recognise young scientists who excel at research, leadership and communication.

Dr Katharina Gaus from the Faculty of Medicine and Dr Rob Brooks, Dr Brendan Burns and Dr Mike Manefield from the Faculty of Science received awards.

Dr Gaus rates her most significant research as the development of a microscopic method for observing communication 'hardware' in living cells. Her work has revealed the presence of hot spots that form on the surface of white blood cells when they chemically communicate with each other. She is examining whether these hot spots play a role in autoimmune and related diseases.

Dr Gaus, an ARC Discovery Fellow at the Faculty of Medicine's Centre for Vascular Research, is currently working at the Max Planck Institute for Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics in Dresden, Germany.

Mike Manefield is developing technologies to harness bacteria that could clean up polluted land and water environments. The technology is based on his postdoctoral research at Oxford University, where he developed a method for identifying bacteria that are responsible for the breakdown of specific pollutants in the environment.

"The microbes of the Earth act as its liver, helping to keep our ecosystems clean," said Dr Manefield, a microbiologist and Senior Research Associate at UNSW's Centre for Marine Biofouling and Bio-Innovation.

"The world is teeming with microscopic organisms that can degrade nearly all known chemical compounds," he said. "Whilst every polluted environment would end up clean if left for long enough, we can accelerate the natural decontamination process with a better understanding of microbial processes."

A leading authority on "living rocks", Dr Brendan Burns is using living and fossilised stromatolites in Shark Bay, Western Australia, to answer questions about the origins of life on Earth and beyond. Considered the world's oldest living life form, these primitive, slow-growing organisms appeared on earth 3.5 billion years ago. Their oxygen-generating activity has allowed other life forms to develop.

"They are excellent natural laboratories, teeming with life that may have helped shape the biology of the early Earth," said Dr Burns, who has consulted with NASA to better focus efforts on the search for signals that may help in the detection of life on other planets.

The winner of the 2005 Eureka Prize for Interdisciplinary Scientific Research, Dr Burns has shown a commitment to communicating science through mass media, film projects and as an expert witness in legal proceedings. He is an adjunct lecturer in the School of Biotechnology and Biomolecular Sciences.

Dr Brooks has made important contributions to evolutionary biology and forged an international reputation in the evolutionary, ecological and genetic study of sexual reproduction.

An ARC Queen Elizabeth II Research Fellow, his research examines how evolution operates on traits that make an individual successful in mating and reproduction. His findings on the "evolutionary costs" of being attractive, such as reduced lifespan, has been published in leading scientific journals and the mass media. His work has implications for our understanding of ageing and senescence, the basis of genetic defects on the sex chromosomes and conservation biology.

A senior lecturer in the School of Biological, Earth and Environmental Sciences, Dr Brooks is the recipient of three major internationally competitive research fellowships and eleven research grants totalling over $2 million.