2010 Annual Report - Institute for Molecular Bioscience - University ...

imb annual report 2010
70
AS IN PAST YEARS, a number of our
students received accolades throughout
2010. Vicki Metzis from the Wicking
group had a wonderful year, winning
the David Walsh Prize for the best
cell and development biology student
presentation at Ozbio2010, from the
Australian and New Zealand Society
of Cell and Developmental Biology
(ANZSCDB). She was also awarded a
student travel award from ANZSCDB
to attend the OzBio conference
and was a winner of the ANZSCDB
image competition to form part of the
ANZSCDB logo (one of five selected). In
addition, she was chosen to speak at
the Gordon-Kenan Research Conference
on Craniofacial Morphogenesis and
Tissue Regeneration in Italy in April
2010 and, as a speaker, received a
small travel award from the Society for
Developmental Biology for attending
and presenting. She also excelled in a
number of “Three-Minute Thesis” (3MT)
oral presentation competitions.
Ms Metzis won the IMB 3MT
competition and thus went on to
represent the Institute at the inter-
Institute Semi-Final. At this event, she
won the People’s Choice Award and
was also chosen by the judges as the
overall winner, meaning Ms Metzis
proceeded to represent all the Institutes
at the UQ-wide competition as one of
eight finalists. She also competed in
the 3MT section of the UQ Centennial
Postgraduate Biomedical Conference,
coming second.
IMB did extremely well in this event
with Elizabeth Skippington (Ragan
group), who was runner-up in the IMB
competition, receiving first place and
Natalie Saez (King group) receiving the
People’s Choice Award. Ms Saez also
won a poster award at the 2010 XXIVth
International Conference on Magnetic
Resonance in Biological Systems
(ICMRBS). Maggie Hardy (also from
the King group) continued as a high
achiever in 2010, receiving the J. H.
Comstock Graduate Student Award
to promote interest in the science of
entomology from the Entomological
Society of America International Branch,
and the First Place Poster Prize for the
IMB Division of Chemistry & Structural
Biology Symposium held in November
2010.
Stephen Ainger from the Sturm
group won a poster prize of $250 at
the Society for Melanoma Research
Congress in Sydney and Oleksiy Kovtun
of the Alexandrov group won 1st prize
in the poster competition of the UQ
Centennial Postgraduate Biomedical
Conference. He also presented an
oral talk at the XII ICOPA International
Congress in Melbourne.
Sabine Mangold of the Yap group
obtained an OzBio2010 conference
registration fee waiver (from the
ANZSCDB) and a poster award at
the Brisbane Cell and Developmental
Biology Meeting, while Caroline Hopkins
of the Little group won the best PhD talk
at the same meeting. Ms Hopkins also
won an International Society for Stem
Cell Research Travel Award to present in
San Francisco and as part of this award
presented her data to leaders of the field
at both Harvard Medical School (Boston)
and Mt Sinai School of Medicine (NYC).
She subsequently received postdoctoral
offers from both groups and will be
taking up a position in NYC in mid-2011.
In August she also received a travel
award to present at the International
Workshop in Developmental Nephrology
in New York.
Muharrem Akcan from the Craik group
received a Gordon Research Conference
Travel Award to attend the meeting
covering the Chemistry and Biology
of Peptides and studied at the Fred
Hutchinson Cancer Research Center,
Seattle, USA, as a visiting scholar from
January 16-April 16 2010, as part of
a UQ Trans-Pacific Fellowship (see
2009 report). We also had five students
appearing on the UQ Dean’s List for
2009: congratulations to Ming Kang
Chang (Sweet group), Tim Mercer
(Mattick group), Markus Mutthenthaler
(Alewood group), Ryan Taft (Mattick
group) and Conan Wang (Craik group)
for joining this elite group.
OUR HONOURS COHORT was small
but continued to excel. We had 17
students commencing in Feb 2010, two
students who carried over from July
2009 and four others who commenced
in July 2010. As in previous years, 80
percent of those students completing
their year in 2010 obtained a grade of
First Class Honours. Amgen Australia
has been presenting our honours
students with the Amgen Award for the
most outstanding honours student at
the IMB for over a decade and we are
thrilled by their continued support of our
young researchers.
The Amgen Award for 2009 was jointly
awarded to Anne Sawyer (Hankamer
group) and Sheila Barbero (Fairlie
group). Ms Sawyer’s honours project
investigated the Purification and
characterization of NAB-1, an RNA
binding protein from Chlamydomonas
reinhardtii, while Ms Barbero’s honours
project was titled “Studies of Secretory
Phospholipase A2 Inhibitors”. We
were naturally delighted when both Ms
Sawyer and Ms Barbero indicated they
wished to further pursue their studies
at the PhD level, each subsequently
being awarded an APA scholarship to
undertake PhD studies at the IMB in the
labs in which they had completed their
honours years.
IN SEPTEMBER 2010, UQ conducted
the Inaugural Undergraduate Research
Conference, bringing students at the
Bachelors and honours level from all
Faculties and Institutes together for this
cross-disciplinary event. Once again our
students did us proud with Rebecca
Johnston (an honours student from the
Mattick group) winning a $600 “Best
Poster Award” and Hilary Martin (an
honours student from the Grimmond
group) obtaining an honourable mention
and a special prize ($500) in the oral
presentation category.
The IMB also continued the
Undergraduate Research Scholarship
Scheme (URSS) in 2010, placing
20 second- and third-year students
within laboratories in one of our four
divisions for eight hours per week during
semester. Additionally, a number of third-