Discovery Early Career Researcher Award - Grant ID: DE230100998
Funder
Australian Research Council
Funding Amount
$444,576.00
Summary
Should I stay or should I go? How brain stem cells leave quiescence. Most adult stem cells in our brains are sleeping (quiescent). Quiescence helps ensure animals have a lifelong population of brain stem cells, which is crucial for the maintenance of brain circuitry. This project aims to investigate how this process is regulated at a molecular level. This project expects to define the molecular playbook controlling quiescence and explain why brain stem cells progress into deeper states of quiesc ....Should I stay or should I go? How brain stem cells leave quiescence. Most adult stem cells in our brains are sleeping (quiescent). Quiescence helps ensure animals have a lifelong population of brain stem cells, which is crucial for the maintenance of brain circuitry. This project aims to investigate how this process is regulated at a molecular level. This project expects to define the molecular playbook controlling quiescence and explain why brain stem cells progress into deeper states of quiescence during aging by combining novel tissue culture and genetic models, where brain stem cells have disrupted quiescence, with innovative methods of reading gene expression. The benefits of these outcomes include the development of methods to control the quiescence of brain stem cells for bioengineering purposes.Read moreRead less
Discovery Early Career Researcher Award - Grant ID: DE160100614
Funder
Australian Research Council
Funding Amount
$363,612.00
Summary
Evolutionary genomics and origin of the molluscan biomineralisation toolkit. The project aims to use new genomes from understudied lineages of Mollusca to identify the genes involved in shell formation (biomineralisation) and infer their function and evolutionary history. The ability of molluscs to biofabricate intricate and robust skeletal structures from sea water is encoded in their genomes. Understanding the ancestral biomineralisation toolkit is of great interest to materials science, which ....Evolutionary genomics and origin of the molluscan biomineralisation toolkit. The project aims to use new genomes from understudied lineages of Mollusca to identify the genes involved in shell formation (biomineralisation) and infer their function and evolutionary history. The ability of molluscs to biofabricate intricate and robust skeletal structures from sea water is encoded in their genomes. Understanding the ancestral biomineralisation toolkit is of great interest to materials science, which seeks to replicate molluscan biomineralisation in vitro for biomedical and other applications. Understanding the toolkit is an important first step toward synthetic biology techniques to 'print' structures like bones in vitro. Moreover, new genomic resources from molluscs will be of interest to researchers in numerous fields.Read moreRead less
Discovery Early Career Researcher Award - Grant ID: DE240100793
Funder
Australian Research Council
Funding Amount
$463,180.00
Summary
Unraveling a new cytokine working model in immune cell exhaustion. This project will investigate a novel paradigm of how a key messenger protein can be sensed by fundamental immune cells, preventing their ‘exhaustion’. Immune cell exhaustion is a fundamental mechanism to maintain the internal homeostasis of vertebrates. However, it is often hijacked by pathogens to dampen the defensive capacity of the immune system. And this specific messenger protein is the only known soluble factor that can d ....Unraveling a new cytokine working model in immune cell exhaustion. This project will investigate a novel paradigm of how a key messenger protein can be sensed by fundamental immune cells, preventing their ‘exhaustion’. Immune cell exhaustion is a fundamental mechanism to maintain the internal homeostasis of vertebrates. However, it is often hijacked by pathogens to dampen the defensive capacity of the immune system. And this specific messenger protein is the only known soluble factor that can deliver ‘anti-exhaustion’ signals to immune cells. This study will advance basic knowledge in biochemistry and immunology by combining interdisciplinary and cutting-edge approaches. The expected outcomes include the developing new scientific theories and identifying novel molecular basis of biological processes. Read moreRead less
Discovery Early Career Researcher Award - Grant ID: DE160100293
Funder
Australian Research Council
Funding Amount
$372,000.00
Summary
Cracking the phosphoinositide code. This project seeks to determine how protein interactions with membrane lipids regulate recruitment to cellular organelles, providing new insight into the complex pathways of cellular homeostasis. Controlling the distribution of proteins within cells is critical for cell signalling and membrane trafficking. This is orchestrated by the interaction of specific protein modules with lipids on the surface of different organelles. The phox homology (PX) domain is a l ....Cracking the phosphoinositide code. This project seeks to determine how protein interactions with membrane lipids regulate recruitment to cellular organelles, providing new insight into the complex pathways of cellular homeostasis. Controlling the distribution of proteins within cells is critical for cell signalling and membrane trafficking. This is orchestrated by the interaction of specific protein modules with lipids on the surface of different organelles. The phox homology (PX) domain is a lipid-binding module found in numerous proteins essential for normal cell trafficking and homeostasis, and perturbed in many conditions including immune dysfunction and cancer. This project plans to investigate molecular determinants of PX-lipid association, generating knowledge about protein-membrane interactions required for cellular function. These insights may underpin future drug design.Read moreRead less
Synthetic genes as reference standards for biology and biomanufacture. Reference standards are needed to improve the measurement of biology and the reliability of biomanufacturing processes. This project aims to engineer synthetic genes capable of acting as reference standards for DNA, RNA and protein. The synthetic genes can be transcribed into mRNA standards, and translated into protein standards, and be further integrated into living cells to measure internal cellular processes.
The outcomes ....Synthetic genes as reference standards for biology and biomanufacture. Reference standards are needed to improve the measurement of biology and the reliability of biomanufacturing processes. This project aims to engineer synthetic genes capable of acting as reference standards for DNA, RNA and protein. The synthetic genes can be transcribed into mRNA standards, and translated into protein standards, and be further integrated into living cells to measure internal cellular processes.
The outcomes include a unified understanding of gene expression and more accurate next-generation sequencing and mass-spectrophotometry technologies. The synthetic genes also allow standardisation and optimisation of biomanufacturing processes that will produce mRNA and biologics products at a higher purity and lower cost.Read moreRead less