Food allergies have emerged as a major public health concern affecting 1 in 10 Australian infants. Hospitals waiting times are in excess of 12-months for specialist services. Recent changes in the environment are driving up rates of food allergy but the mechanisms are unclear. Epigenetics is the science of how the environment influences gene behaviour. This fellowship will address the important and urgent question of how modern environments are changing our genes, leading to food allergy.
Centre Of Research Excellence On Sitting Time And Chronic Disease Prevention – Mechanisms, Measurement And Interventions
Funder
National Health and Medical Research Council
Funding Amount
$2,657,874.00
Summary
Australian research has identified serious health consequences arising from the 7 to 10 hours of daily sitting that most people do, especially in relation to ‘diseases of inactivity’ – type 2 diabetes, coronary heart disease and breast and colon cancer – that are an unwelcome burden on individuals, families and health systems. This new research examines the practical feasibility and the preventive-health benefits of changing children’s and adults’ sitting time in schools, workplaces and the home ....Australian research has identified serious health consequences arising from the 7 to 10 hours of daily sitting that most people do, especially in relation to ‘diseases of inactivity’ – type 2 diabetes, coronary heart disease and breast and colon cancer – that are an unwelcome burden on individuals, families and health systems. This new research examines the practical feasibility and the preventive-health benefits of changing children’s and adults’ sitting time in schools, workplaces and the home environment.Read moreRead less
Investigating The Cellular Response To Iron-Depletion: The Trilogy Of ASK1, Thioredoxin And Ribonucleotide Reductase
Funder
National Health and Medical Research Council
Funding Amount
$552,572.00
Summary
Iron is crucial for many essential biological processes. Recently, we demonstrated that iron-depletion can affects important signalling pathways (e.g., JNK and p38) that play important roles in growth arrest and apoptosis. This study is designed to investigate the cellular and molecular effects of iron depletion which currently remains unclear. The research is crucial for understanding: (1) the effects of iron deficiency and (2) for understanding the effects of iron chelators that are used for t ....Iron is crucial for many essential biological processes. Recently, we demonstrated that iron-depletion can affects important signalling pathways (e.g., JNK and p38) that play important roles in growth arrest and apoptosis. This study is designed to investigate the cellular and molecular effects of iron depletion which currently remains unclear. The research is crucial for understanding: (1) the effects of iron deficiency and (2) for understanding the effects of iron chelators that are used for treating various diseases.Read moreRead less
Development of Dry Coated Pigment Particles: Durability and Dispersion. Tiwest is the only business in the world that mines, separates, refines and manufactures titanium dioxide products in one region. Tiwest has a major impact on the Western Australian economy with more than 700 full time and contract jobs, export earnings of $400M (in 2004) and regular incomes for an estimated 500 businesses. The current wet pigment particle coating process, to ensure ease of handling and longevity, is a major ....Development of Dry Coated Pigment Particles: Durability and Dispersion. Tiwest is the only business in the world that mines, separates, refines and manufactures titanium dioxide products in one region. Tiwest has a major impact on the Western Australian economy with more than 700 full time and contract jobs, export earnings of $400M (in 2004) and regular incomes for an estimated 500 businesses. The current wet pigment particle coating process, to ensure ease of handling and longevity, is a major cost. An optimised pigment dry-coating process would ensure Tiwest's competitiveness through reduced processing costs and improved performance. This development has the potential to increase Tiwest's profitability by 10%.Read moreRead less
Reduction of risk in exploration for petroleum liquids. Australia has an urgent need to establish additional reserves of crude oil. A feature of petroleum exploration in recent decades has been discovery of vast reserves of natural gas but an inability to replace our diminishing reserves of crude oil. Clearly new technology is required to enhance our capability to recognise crude oil-prone rather than gas-prone source rocks. The proposed project will establish the fundamental geochemical pro ....Reduction of risk in exploration for petroleum liquids. Australia has an urgent need to establish additional reserves of crude oil. A feature of petroleum exploration in recent decades has been discovery of vast reserves of natural gas but an inability to replace our diminishing reserves of crude oil. Clearly new technology is required to enhance our capability to recognise crude oil-prone rather than gas-prone source rocks. The proposed project will establish the fundamental geochemical processes that will support the potential exploration techniques, developed with Woodside Energy Limited support.Read moreRead less
Designing for uncertainty in conservation auctions. Economic theory and case study evidence show that tenders or auctions are more efficient than grant mechanisms for encouraging landholders to produce environmental outcomes on private land. These studies have ignored the effects of uncertainty of both bidders and administrators about factors such as landholder participation and the level of environmental benefits that will be delivered. This project will test whether distributing environmental ....Designing for uncertainty in conservation auctions. Economic theory and case study evidence show that tenders or auctions are more efficient than grant mechanisms for encouraging landholders to produce environmental outcomes on private land. These studies have ignored the effects of uncertainty of both bidders and administrators about factors such as landholder participation and the level of environmental benefits that will be delivered. This project will test whether distributing environmental funds via tenders is still efficient when uncertainty about various important factors is considered. Results from this research are expected to inform the cost effective design of systems to pay landholders for the provision of environmental benefits even when there is high uncertainty.Read moreRead less
Guarding and evolving the genome: interactions between DNA-repair enzymes and damaged DNA. The application of structural biology techniques to the area of DNA repair allows us to understand the full implications linking genes and proteins to the molecular mechanisms of diseases such as cancer and hereditory conditions. Studies in this highly internationally competitive area are already established in the Bond laboratory, which has recently relocated to Australia. The use of forward-thinking stru ....Guarding and evolving the genome: interactions between DNA-repair enzymes and damaged DNA. The application of structural biology techniques to the area of DNA repair allows us to understand the full implications linking genes and proteins to the molecular mechanisms of diseases such as cancer and hereditory conditions. Studies in this highly internationally competitive area are already established in the Bond laboratory, which has recently relocated to Australia. The use of forward-thinking structural biology approaches to solve difficult technical problems will foster collaborations within Australia and with leading laboratories abroad, providing excellent up-to-date research training for students and postdoctoral researchers.
Read moreRead less
Discovery Early Career Researcher Award - Grant ID: DE230100978
Funder
Australian Research Council
Funding Amount
$406,818.00
Summary
A new Iron Age! Making Iron complexes fit for C-C cross-coupling catalysis. This project aims to develop new iron catalysts as alternatives to the expensive and increasingly rare noble metals currently used in C-C bond forming reactions, the most important single-step in the fine-chemicals sector.
This project expects to create a flexible yet robust framework by introducing a hemilabile ligand into the backbone of the iron complex to control the number of vacant coordination sites.
Expected outc ....A new Iron Age! Making Iron complexes fit for C-C cross-coupling catalysis. This project aims to develop new iron catalysts as alternatives to the expensive and increasingly rare noble metals currently used in C-C bond forming reactions, the most important single-step in the fine-chemicals sector.
This project expects to create a flexible yet robust framework by introducing a hemilabile ligand into the backbone of the iron complex to control the number of vacant coordination sites.
Expected outcomes of this project are 1) iron complexes able to catalyse biaryl couplings from sustainable substrates and 2) knowledge on structure-property relationships of iron-based catalytic processes.
Australia will benefit by applying its own resources and help preserving the valuable noble metals for processes relying on them.Read moreRead less
Redesigning Landcare policy to better coordinate across landholders. This project aims to study how landscape-sensitive economic incentives and social norms can be leveraged to enhance the short- and long-term effectiveness of conservation programs. It will yield new knowledge for innovative designs in conservation contracting that is urgently needed to address worsening environmental threats in Australia and worldwide. In collaboration with Nobel laureate Vernon Smith’s team, new methods and pr ....Redesigning Landcare policy to better coordinate across landholders. This project aims to study how landscape-sensitive economic incentives and social norms can be leveraged to enhance the short- and long-term effectiveness of conservation programs. It will yield new knowledge for innovative designs in conservation contracting that is urgently needed to address worsening environmental threats in Australia and worldwide. In collaboration with Nobel laureate Vernon Smith’s team, new methods and protocols will improve our ability to generate better data and better understand how social and incentive mechanisms can constructively interact to facilitate collaborative environmental action. Results will help make the achievement of environmental targets and the use of public funds more cost-effective. Read moreRead less