Biology Newsletter - The University of Sydney

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KICKSTART BIOLOGY WORKSHOPS GO WEST Brains, eye-balls, embryos and live locusts! The Kickstart Biology workshops engage final-year high school students in interactive activities aligned to the HSC syllabus. Prohibitive distances mean many regional schools can’t make the trip to Sydney. So this year we packed up our equipment and drove west to Tamworth, Parkes and Wagga. “I enjoyed dissecting the eye and the brain and looking at different specimens under the microscope,” said one student. While another student preferred the “blood type testing.” But whatever their preference, it was rewarding day for both the students and the staff who made the trip. Whilst in town, the experiments were set-up for public exhibition in the evening. This also allowed for non-HSC activities like cocoa analysis (chocolate tasting) and liveanimal displays (spiders, centipedes and stick-insects – not for tasting). Kickstart on the Road is a joint program with the School of Physics and, with the support of a Widening Participation Grant from the Social Inclusion Unit, we were able to take our two most popular workshops, Blueprint of Life and Communication, to year 12 students in regional areas of NSW. Other recent outreach activities have included an arthropod-filled Gifted and Talented Discovery program with the Faculty of Science and a strawberry-squelching DNA-extraction extravaganza at the Australian Museum National Science Week Expo. sydney.edu.au/science/outreach/kickstart/biology Photos L-R: Francesca van den Berg dissects a cow’s eye; a student searches for the locusts ‘ears’; the public exhibition at Parkes attracts a budding biologist. EXEMPLARY TEACHERS The Federal Government’s Office of Teaching and Learning has this year awarded three citations for ‘outstanding contributions to student learning’ to our staff – past and present. Dr Matthew Bulbert (Technical officer 1996-97) – Now at Macquarie University. For designing an innovative teaching and support framework that enhances student participation, resourcefulness and creative critical thinking Dr John Harper (Post-doctoral fellow and lecturer 1994-2001) – Now at Charles Sturt University. For an interdisciplinary science team teaching initiative for oncampus and distance education students: fostering student engagement in first year microbiology Dr Danny Liu (Associate lecturer 2012-present) – University of Sydney. For development of innovative technologyenhanced and inquiry-based teaching practises and curricula that inspire and motivate a new generation of scientists 6 L-R: Dr Danny Liu, Dr John Harper and Dr Matthew Bulbert
ALUMNI PROFILE: BRUCE STILLMAN Dr Bruce Stillman (BSc(Hons) 1976, DSc(honoris causa) 2008) has devoted his research career to understanding the inheritance of the human genome. Dr Stillman is President of Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory as well as Director of their Cancer Centre. His studies into the packaging, duplication and segregation of chromosomes, and the cancerinducing mistakes in the process, have yielded many accolades. Including fellowship of the Royal Society and the Australian Academy of Science, election to the US National Academy of Science and appointment to Officer of the Order of Australia. This year, Dr Stillman was the School of Biological Science’s annual Murray lecturer. In addition to the public lecture, he spent time in discussions with academic staff and a weekend away with students at Warrah. What drew you to Biology and Medicine? I became interested in medicine when I was 11 or 12, and later joined St. John Ambulance in Glen Waverley, Victoria. There I learnt advanced emergency medical training and even worked in hospital emergency rooms on weekends. But later, in my second year at the University of Sydney, I had to choose between medicine and science. It was a hugely difficult choice, but made easier because I had decided to pursue a career in research. Professor Spencer Smith-White, a great Australian geneticist, advised me that I would not learn much science while training to become a physician and thus my path was set. It was also made easier by the huge enthusiasm displayed by Dr Keith Brown who was a faculty member in the School of Biological Sciences, one of the few at the University keyed into the then new recombinant DNA discoveries. I worked in his laboratory in the Macleay Building during my Honours year – even though he spent much of the time on sabbatical leave at Stanford University, where Paul Berg, Stan Cohen and others had discovered recombinant DNA technology. I learned directly about these developments and their application to cancer research. These events eventually led me to Cold Spring Harbor. What are your memories from your time at the School of Biological Sciences and in the Biological Society? The best memories were the weekend trips to Warrah at Pearl Beach. Even though I did not study botany, ecology or zoology, I had friends who did and they went there on field trips. Somehow I spent many weekends bush walking and thinking. Later, through connections with the School’s marine biologists, I was able to work for two summers at the University of Queensland research station on Heron Island in the Great Barrier Reef, working on Green and Loggerhead Sea Turtles. It was so different from molecular biology in the lab in Macleay! Your research has focused on how DNA is duplicated in the cell. In broad terms, what have you learnt? I started research in 1976 at the Australian National University and later at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in New York, beginning in 1979. During the second year of my PhD at the John Curtin School of Medical Research, I spoke at the Cold Spring Harbor Symposium in New York, which celebrated the 25 th anniversary of the discovery of the double helix structure of DNA (we have just had the 60 th such celebration). It struck me that despite 25 years of DNA, little was known about how our genome was duplicated. Now we know a great deal more and together with my current and former students and postdocs, we have contributed to understanding all major steps. We now know in great detail how the enzyme machineries work and how DNA replication is controlled, as well as how it goes wrong and induces the initial stages of cancer. What are you working on now? Do you still have a chance to do research? Even though my role as President of Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory keeps me busy, I still run an eight-person lab that focuses on the machinery that replicates DNA and how it integrates with processes such as chromosome segregation. We also study how the proteins bound to DNA are duplicated and how they influence epigenetic inheritance. What have been the highlights of your career to date – either in research or in your role as President of Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory? Perhaps the major highlights, and there have been quite a number, have been discovering completely unknown biological processes and proteins in cells. Coupled with the chance to work with amazingly talented students and postdoctoral fellows, the excitement of discovery still drives me today. As president I get to meet some of the world’s most interesting people, but that cannot top discovering something. 7
Page 1 and 2: FACULTY OF SCIENCE Biology News ISS
Page 3 and 4: RESEARCH SPOTLIGHT: WILLIAM FIGUEIR
Page 5: CHEATING AND HOUSE HUNTING IN HONEY

Biology Newsletter - The University of Sydney

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