New Fellows' seminar

Awards presentation

Symposium proceedings

Teachers program

Early-career researchers program

Professor Michael Archer

Professor Archer received undergraduate training at Princeton University, and was awarded consecutive Fulbright Scholarships for palaeontological research in the Western Australian Museum in Perth. He received his PhD from the University of Western Australia in 1976. From 1972 to 1978 he was Curator of Mammals at the Queensland Museum, where he began his work on the Riversleigh fossil site. In 1978 he moved to the University of New South Wales, where he has been Professor of Biological Science since 1989. In 1999 he became the Director of the Australian Museum in Sydney while maintaining a formal appointment as Professor at UNSW.

Reading the rocks

A life of palaeontological, geological and zoological research has led to the conviction that Australia requires a massive overhaul in the way we utilise our natural resources.

Professor Murray Esler

Professor Esler is a cardiologist and clinical neuroscientist. After undergraduate medical school education at Melbourne University, he received a PhD from the Australian National University (Department of Clinical Science). Since 1977 he has been based at the Alfred Hospital, Melbourne (currently Associate Director of the Heart Centre) and the Baker Medical Research Institute (currently Associate Director). His chief research interests are the causes and treatment of high blood pressure and heart failure, the effects of stress on the cardiovascular system, and monoamine transmitters of the human brain.

Neural mechanisms in heart failure and high blood pressure

Methods developed at the Baker Institute for studying the human sympathetic nervous system, based on direct quantification of rates of neurotransmitter release, have recently led to research findings underpinning important changes in the practice of medicine.

Heart failure. The earlier view was that in the failing heart there was functional sympathetic denervation. This prompted misguided use of cardiac stimulants, aiming to correct the deficiency. Direct measurements of neural transmitter (noradrenaline) release subsequently demonstrated that, in fact, there was highly excessive sympathetic nervous stimulation of the heart, a major cause of death. This provided theoretical justification for the use of beta-adrenergic blocking drugs, previously thought to be harmful but now shown to be life-saving.

High blood pressure. The notion that stress can cause cardiovascular disease, an idea in the past often banished to the realm of medical folklore, now has strong supporting scientific evidence in patients with essential hypertension. The findings documented in Melbourne – chronically elevated firing of sympathetic nerves driven by the forebrain, and release of the stress hormone, adrenaline, as a cotransmitter from sympathetic nerves - provide biological evidence of ongoing mental stress. Whether stress causes high blood pressure, hotly debated in the past, has been under recent review by the Specialist Medical Review Council. The conclusion, just reported in the Commonwealth Government Notices Gazette on 27 March 2002, was that occupational stress is a cause of high blood pressure.

Professor Robin Evans

Professor Evans received a PhD from the University of Newcastle in the area of optimisation theory and signal processing. In 1978, following postdoctoral studies at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Cambridge University, he returned to the University of Newcastle where in 1987 he became Professor of Computer Engineering and Head of the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering. In 1992 he moved to the University of Melbourne, where he is currently a Professor of Electrical Engineering. He has played a major role in the Cooperative Research Centre for Sensor Signal and Information Processing. His research interests have focused on control systems and signal processing and their diverse applications.

RADAR and information

Over the past 100 years RAdio Detection And Ranging (RADAR) has grown into a major remote sensing technology with application far beyond anything imagined by the early pioneers. RADAR is now critical to areas such as transport safety, environmental monitoring and surveillance. The spectacular advances in RADAR over the past 40 years are closely tied to advances in digital signal processing and information extraction. In this talk I will briefly review the history and applications of RADAR and discuss new research directions based on modern control theory, which promise a quantum leap in RADAR performance.

Professor Christopher Goodnow

Professor Goodnow has pioneered the use of mouse molecular genetics for studying the mechanisms of immunological tolerance to self antigens, the ability of the immune system to recognise its own normal tissues and body fluids as self. He devised a novel system to genetically modify mice that has become widely used in immunology. He led a team that combined this new approach with classical immunology, mouse mutants, biochemical analysis and gene-expression profiling on DNA arrays to illuminate the process of self-nonself discrimination by the immune system. His work changed the conceptual framework of self-tolerance by showing that it is acquired through a series of regulatory checkpoints at many steps in the maturation of lymphocytes, or immune cells. The elucidation of these 'peripheral tolerance' checkpoints has fostered practical efforts to induce or restore tolerance in adults during transplantation and autoimmunity.

Mechanisms of immunological tolerance: how the immune system learns not to attack our own body

Understanding how the immune system avoids mounting damaging responses against the body's own tissue antigens is one of the great conceptual and practical problems in biomedical research. Efforts to identify the cellular mechanisms that mediate 'self-tolerance', and any hope of understanding the biochemistry and genetics that underpin tolerance and its breakdown in autoimmune diseases, were thwarted by the great complexity of immune cells and the antigen receptors they carry.

The solution to this problem has come from a strategy of employing transgenic mice that have been genetically modified to carry pre-defined populations of immune cells. This strategy has changed the conceptual framework of the field by showing that self-tolerance is acquired through a series of regulatory checkpoints at many steps in immune cell maturation rather than only in immature cells. The illumination of these 'peripheral tolerance' checkpoints has fostered practical efforts to induce or restore tolerance in adults during transplantation and autoimmunity.

Professor Robert Graham

Professor Graham received his medical training (MB, BS) from the University of New South Wales and internal medicine and subspecialty training (FRACP; FACP) at St Vincent's and Sydney Hospitals, and the University of Texas Southwestern Medical School, Dallas. He then undertook postdoctoral work at the Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, leading to his MD from UNSW in 1988. After 17 years in the US, including a year as visiting scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and the last five as the Robert C Tarazi Professor and Chairman, Department of Cardiovascular Biology, Cleveland Clinic Foundation, he returned to Australia as the inaugural Director, Victor Chang Cardiac Research Institute. His research for many years has focused on molecular cardiology, with emphasis on circulatory control mechanisms, receptor signalling and cardiac hypertrophy.

Molecular mechanisms of hormonal signalling

Fundamental to our ability to respond to both immediate and long-term environmental changes and stresses is the coordinated regulation of cellular functions by hormonal and neurotransmitter stimuli. Transmembrane signalling by over 80 per cent of hormones and neurotransmitters is mediated by G-protein-coupled receptors – complex polytopic membrane proteins that function as finely-tuned macromolecular switches. Encoded by over 2 per cent of our genes, these receptors-proteins are the targets of more than 50 per cent of available therapeutics. Mutation of even one of their 300-550 constituent amino acids can cause a variety of distinctive, aberrant phenotypes and, not surprisingly, may be disease-causing. A high resolution atomic structure has thus far been elucidated for only one of the ~300 members of this receptor superfamily. Nevertheless, detailed biochemical and biophysical studies have revealed a common activation process that involves distinct conformational changes and relays, and evolution of the receptor-structures to optimise fidelity and amplitude of the signal generated.

Professor John Hutchinson

Professor Hutchinson received a PhD in 1974 from Stanford University for his work on the foundations of mathematics in the areas of model theory and set theory. He was subsequently appointed to the Department of Mathematics at the Australian National University. He changed his area of research to mathematical analysis, in particular geometric measure theory and partial differential equations. He is particularly interested in mathematical investigations of models arising from physical and geometric phenomena. These include generalised notions of curvature, nonlinear elasticity, numerical approximations of surfaces determined by or evolving by their curvature, cartography, image recognition, and fractals. The latter work has had many applications to areas as diverse as compression for multimedia, particle size distribution in soils, fragmentation analysis of thin plates, structure and development of plants, and evolutionary algorithms.

Mathematical investigations from physical and geometrical problems

Mathematics develops in large part from internally aesthetic and formal considerations, yet has an uncanny inevitability of underlying almost all fields of science and technology, finance and economics, and increasingly the study of human behaviour at both the individual and group level. My interest is the investigation and development of mathematics, motivated in part by considerations of geometric and physical phenomena. The mathematics arising in this manner is not a precise model of the original problem, but by extracting out general patterns one is led to areas of mathematical investigations which may have an applicability broader than just back to the original questions. In the talk I will discuss my work on surfaces determined by or evolving by their curvature, image recognition and fractals.

Professor John Jacobsen

Dr Jacobsen received a PhD in 1965 from the University of California, Davis, for studies of the biochemical mechanism of production of volatile sulphur compounds in plants and their use in taxonomy. Following postdoctoral work on plant hormone action in the newly established Atomic Energy Commission Plant Research Laboratory at Michigan State University, he joined CSIRO Plant Industry in 1967. His work at CSIRO has focused on the molecular mechanisms of plant hormone action, particularly the gibberellin and abscisic acid responses involving control of gene expression in plant growth and development.

Hormones, genes and plant growth and development

Complex multicellular organisms use hormones to coordinate their growth and development and to respond to environmental signals. Hormones are chemical messengers which are made in one place and transmitted to other sites in the organism where they direct cellular processes. Perception of hormone molecules by cellular receptors sets in motion a cascade of processes called signal transduction, the end point of which is commonly the regulation of gene activity. Expression of a suite of genes, specific to the hormone and the tissue, is followed by a developmental response. Using a part of the barley grain (the aleurone) as an experimental system in which two plant hormones, gibberellin and abscisic acid, control synthesis of a group of enzymes, it has been possible to examine hormone action at the molecular level in a relatively uncomplicated way. The outcomes of this research may be relevant to the action of these hormones in other parts of the plant.

Professor Yuri Kivshar

Professor Kivshar received a PhD from the Institute for Low Temperature Physics and Engineering (Ukraine) for research in nonlinear waves and solitons. After postdoctoral and visiting research positions at different centres in the US and Europe, he joined the Australian National University's Research School of Physical Sciences and Engineering in 1993, where he founded the Nonlinear Physics Group. His research in Australia has focused on nonlinear optics, photonics, and application of solitons for all-optical technologies. He has received many awards, including the International Pnevmatikos Prize in Nonlinear Science (1995) and the Pawsey Medal (1998). Since 1999 he has served as Associate Editor of the Physical Review, the first Australian to hold this position.

Guiding light for future technologies

The present on-going revolution in photonics will lead to all-optical photonic technologies and devices, where light controls and manipulates light. I will describe several fundamental ideas of light-induced control and switching in nonlinear photonics and discuss some possible applications for designing extremely small all-optical logical gates.

One of the recent ideas is associated with the physics of photonic crystals, an analogue of semiconductors for light waves. Photonic crystals are composite, periodic, dielectric materials that provide novel ways to control light, and they are useful in developing all-optical technologies which are expected to revolutionise the information and telecommunication industry. Such technologies can take advantage of the slow group-velocities of light in photonic crystals, shape-preserving propagation, and operation and reconfiguration flexibility offered by optical solitons. Harnessing the nonlinear properties of photonic crystals and photonic-crystal waveguides offers an opportunity to create the all-optical analogues of diodes and transistors that will one day enable the first all-optical computer to be built.

Professor Pauline Ladiges

Professor Ladiges received her PhD from the University of Melbourne in 1976 for studies of plant genecology. She was appointed lecturer in the School of Botany, where she developed a research program in plant systematics, studying the evolutionary relationships of the eucalypts. She was among the first in Australia to use cladistic methodology and developed new methods for analysing biogeographic patterns. In 1992 she was awarded a Personal Chair at her University. She has trained a strong team of postgraduate students, edited secondary and tertiary biology textbooks and served on boards and advisory panels for government, industry, and other organisations.

Phylogeny and biogeographic history of Australian flora

Modern methods of phylogenetic systematics, used to discover relationships among organisms, have advanced our understanding of the evolutionary history of Australia's flora. The three largest groups of flowering plants in Australia are the eucalypts (Angophora, Corymbia and Eucalyptus, c. 800 species), acacias (Acacia subgenus Phyllodineae, 950 species) and paperbarks (Melaleuca, 250 species). DNA sequencing is enabling identification of the main evolutionary lineages within these three groups, supporting the need for major taxonomic changes.

Discovering phylogenetic relationships also provides evidence of biogeographic history. The discovery that Arillastrum, endemic to New Caledonia, is the closest relative of the eucalypts probably reflects an ancient history since the late Cretaceous. A similar pattern is emerging for the Melaleuca group of the same family, Myrtaceae. Australian phyllodinous acacias are probably most closely related to other legume genera in Australasia, rather than to other groups of Acacia worldwide. Their age is as yet unknown.

Professor Eugenie Lumbers

Professor Lumbers studied medicine at the University of Adelaide. She began her research career studying an enzyme system which is involved in the control of blood pressure and is present in high levels in the pregnant uterus. She was awarded an NHMRC C J Martin scholarship to study the physiology of the fetus at Oxford University. She returned to Australia to the School of Physiology and Pharmacology at the University of New South Wales, where she set up a research program in developmental physiology and is now studying developmental cardiovascular and renal physiology. She was awarded a DSc in 1986 and a personal chair in 1988. In 1998 she became one of the six inaugural Scientia Professors at UNSW. She has worked for the Australian Research Council, the National Health and Medical Research Council and the National Heart Foundation. She is author/coauthor of more than 130 scientific papers and more than 250 conference presentations. She is married and has three children and five grandchildren.

Neuroendocrine control of renal and cardiac development

One factor influencing gestation length of placental mammals is the size of the brain at birth. There is usually only one human fetus and the growth of its body is slow, thus nutrient supply from the mother can meet the high fetal cerebral metabolic demand. If supply of nutrients or oxygen to the fetus is insufficient, body growth slows but brain growth continues and the brain 'is spared'. This growth-retarded infant is predisposed to develop (ie, programmed for) hypertension and cardiovascular disease as an adult.

Failure to meet fetal metabolic demand is more likely in late pregnancy when fetal mass is large. The greatest growth of the kidney and the heart occurs at this time. We have shown, in chronically catheterised fetal sheep, that the brain could influence the development of these two organs through both neural and endocrine pathways. Thus, the fetal brain may be involved in programming for cardiovascular disease in adult life.

Professor Mark Randolph

Professor Randolph received his PhD from Cambridge University for theoretical studies of the performance of pile foundations. After lecturing at Cambridge for 8 years, he was recruited to the University of Western Australia, where he is currently Director of the ARC-funded Special Research Centre for Offshore Foundation Systems. He interacts closely with the offshore industry, being also a director of specialist geotechnical consultants, Advanced Geomechanics. His personal research interests are currently focused on the use of plasticity analyses to estimate limiting loads for penetrometers, foundations and anchoring systems embedded in fine-grained soils typical of deep water sediments.

Theoretical and experimental penetration resistance of soft clay

The cone penetrometer is the most widely used tool offshore for measuring the shear strength profile, in spite of limitations such as the need to correct for the ambient overburden stress and the absence of a precise link between the penetration resistance and the shear strength of the soil. In soft deposits, as generally encountered in deep water, alternative 'flow-round' penetrometers are superior since: (a) there is minimal correction for the overburden stress; and (b) closely bracketed plasticity solutions relate the penetration resistance to the shear strength of the soil. However, experimental evidence is not consistent with theory, and shows similar (or lower) penetration resistance for axisymmetric (spherical) penetrometers compared with a cylindrical bar penetrometer, despite theory suggesting the resistance of the former should be 20 per cent higher. What are we missing?

Professor Ian Ritchie

Professor Ritchie received his PhD from Melbourne University. After lecturing there and at the University of Western Australia, he was appointed Professor of Chemistry at Murdoch University in 1984. From 1992 until 2001, he was Director of the AJ Parker Cooperative Research Centre for Hydrometallurgy. His research has spanned a range of topics in metal/gas and metal/solution reactions, particularly hydrometallurgical reactions, with a strong emphasis on electrochemical methods. He has received a number of honours for his work, the most recent being that the 2003 Hydrometallurgy Conference in the USA has been named in his honour.

Dissolution of gold in cyanide solutions

Reactions of solids with gases or solutions are of great industrial importance. One such reaction is the dissolution of gold in aerated alkaline cyanide solutions. This is the first step in gold processing, an industry whose exports are worth about A$5 billion per year to Australia. In 1954, the mechanism of the dissolution reaction seemed clear: the rate was controlled by the diffusion of reactants to the gold surface. However, in the work described in this paper, using a rotating quartz crystal microbalance to measure the dissolution rates, it was found that really pure gold does not dissolve in really pure cyanide. The earlier results were the consequence of using impure gold and/or cyanide solutions, probably contaminated with lead. Even 10 parts per billion of lead can have a measurable effect. The results can be explained by supposing that lead deposits on the gold surface, breaking up a protective film.

Dr Ezio Rizzardo

Dr Rizzardo is a graduate of the University of New South Wales and received a PhD from the University of Sydney for his studies on the photochemistry of nitro compounds. After postdoctoral work on synthesis of biologically active compounds (vindolines, vitamin D analogues and prostaglandins) at Rice University, the Research Institute for Medicine and Chemistry and the ANU, he joined CSIRO in 1976 to pursue a career in polymer science. His research at CSIRO has focused on developing methods for controlling free radical polymerisation so as to produce polymers of better defined structure and more complex architecture.

Controlling the structure of polymers: challenges and benefits

Free radical polymerisation is the most versatile and convenient method for converting monomers into commercially useful polymers. The conventional method however offers little scope for controlling the chemical structure of the resulting polymers. At CSIRO, living free radical polymerisation methods have been devised which afford polymers of either simple or complex architecture, such as gradient, diblock, triblock and star, all of predetermined average molecular size and narrow molecular size distributions. The block copolymers are of particular interest because, apart from providing improved traditional products such as pigment dispersants, compatibilising agents, and thermoplastic elastomers, they can be self-assembled into micellular structures. These in turn can be stabilised and engineered into nanoparticles for, among other things, the targeted and controlled release of therapeutic drugs.

Professor Vicki Sara

Professor Sara received a PhD from the University of Sydney in 1974. After receiving a UNESCO postdoctoral fellowship to Sweden, Professor Sara held various research positions at the Karolinska Institute, Stockholm, heading the Endocrine Pathology Research Laboratory before returning to Australia in 1993. She was appointed Chief Executive Officer of the Australian Research Council in July 2001. From September 1997 to June 2001 she was the Chair of the Council and member of the Prime Minister's Science Engineering and Innovation Council (PMSEIC). She is a member of the CSIRO Board, the National Innovation Awareness Council, and the Cooperative Research Centres Committee. In 1999 she was elected Vice-Chair of the OECD's Global Science Forum.

The Australian Research Council

The last years have been significant ones for the ARC. The Government has initiated major reforms to the ARC which enable it to achieve its mission of advancing Australia's capacity for quality research to the benefit of the community. In December 1999 the Government released Knowledge and Innovation, which outlined a new policy and funding framework for research and research training. Knowledge and Innovation outlined the structure and functions of a 'new' ARC indicating the Government's intention to establish the ARC as an independent body under its own legislation. The ARC would have increased responsibility for providing strategic advice to the Government on research and would be responsible for the management and administration of the National Competitive Grants Program. To achieve these goals the ARC has established new governance and structural arrangements to reflect the broader national innovation system, to increase flexibility and responsiveness; to develop and facilitate partnerships; and to improve our capacity to identify and respond to emerging needs of research excellence and national priorities.

In January 2001 the Prime Minister announced Australia's innovation action plan for the future, Backing Australia's Ability, which provided an additional $736.4 million over four years for the ARC's National Competitive Grants Program, doubling the funds currently available by 2006. In March 2001 the Australian Research Council Bill 2000 was passed by Federal Parliament, paving the way for the ARC to be established as an independent agency. The ARC Act 2001 was proclaimed on 1 July 2001, heralding a new era for the ARC.

Professor Tamarapu Sridhar

Professor Sridhar received his PhD from Monash University for studies on the oxidation of cyclohexane, focusing on the interaction between mass transfer and chemical kinetics. After a short teaching stint at the State University of New York at Buffalo he joined Monash University where, since 1992, he has been Professor and Head of Chemical Engineering. His recent research on the behaviour of long chain molecules under deformation led to the invention of the filament stretching rheometer, which facilitates the study of macromolecules in a stretching flow field. He is a Fellow of the Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering. He has served as President of the Australian Society of Rheology and is editor of the Korea-Australia Rheology Journal.

How do macromolecules respond to deformation?

Modern materials, whether intended for industrial or personal use, are increasingly tailored to meet specific needs. The interaction between the structure of the material, the processing involved and the desired properties of the end product, is an area of significant commercial and intellectual interest. Understanding the relationship between molecular structure and the behaviour in flow is crucial for designing materials at the molecular level, especially for macromolecules. Extensional or stretching flows are encountered in several industrial operations and these are qualitatively and quantitatively different from shear flows. The extent of deformation induced on the macromolecules in solution is also significantly different and, consequently, large stresses are generated. However, the experimental realisation of such flows in the laboratory has, until recently, proved elusive. The last decade has seen a vast improvement in our ability to quantitatively measure the extensional viscosity of polymer solutions, resulting in the development of the filament stretching rheometer. This talk traces these developments and shows how they are leading to a better understanding of macromolecular behaviour in extensional flows.

Professor Fiona Stanley

Professor Stanley trained in medicine in Western Australia and obtained post-graduate training in epidemiology, biostatistics and social medicine at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. After a year as visiting scientist at the National Institutes of Health in the USA, she returned to Perth to establish unique population-based perinatal data and to establish a research group in maternal and child-health epidemiology. She was awarded a Doctorate in Medicine in 1985 and was Deputy Director of the NHMRC Research Unit in Epidemiology and Preventive Medicine, at the University of Western Australia. She moved from there in 1990 to establish a multi-disciplinary research institute linking population science with clinical and basic biomedical research, to enhance the capacity to elucidate the causal pathways to the complex problems in child health, many of which are rising. From humble beginnings, the Telethon Institute for Child Health Research is now one of the leading institutes in Australia, with 300 scientists, students and support staff working in a new purpose-built research facility.

Scientific contributions to perinatal epidemiology in Australia

Studies of perinatal mortality and morbidity using population data were poorly developed in Australia in the late 1970s and early 1980s. In describing their causes, the limitations of perinatal care to reduce their impact became obvious. This led to exciting new hypotheses about antenatal rather than perinatal causes for most stillbirths, the majority of neonatal deaths and even a significant proportion of infant deaths. We investigated the causal hypotheses for neural tube defects, for cerebral palsy and for preterm births. We implemented the first folate prevention of spina bifida in the world and evaluated its impact using total population data. Our research challenged the long held view that cerebral palsies were mostly due to birth asphyxia and changed the emphasis towards antenatal risks. Underpinning all this work has been an innovative record-linked database in Western Australia, which we are continuing to develop and utilise to unravel the complex causal pathways to childhood problems and to evaluate population interventions to improve them.

Professor Robert Sutherland

Professor Sutherland received a PhD from the Australian National University's John Curtin School of Medical Research for his studies on the role of serum proteins in the transport of thyroid and steroid hormones to target tissues. Following a postdoctoral period at INSERM in Paris studying sex steroid hormone receptors he occupied positions at CSIRO and the University of Sydney. He joined the Garvan Institute of Medical Research in 1985, where he has developed major research programs in breast and prostate cancer. They have provided new insights into the molecular basis for the development and progression of these diseases.

Identification and functional analysis of genes involved in the pathogenesis of breast and prostate cancer

Breast and prostate cancer, two of the most commonly diagnosed cancers in Western societies, share several biological similarities. The most striking of these is the dependence on sex steroid hormones, oestrogens and androgens, for cancer development and progression. Our research has focused on the identification and functional analysis of genes that are aberrantly expressed in these disease states. Two principal approaches have been adopted. The first has involved characterising genes which mediate the growth stimulatory effects of sex steroids and growth factors, in the belief that abnormal expression of these genes will contribute to the loss of normal growth control that is characteristic of cancer. This has been complemented recently by gene expression profiling, whereby more than 30,000 unique gene sequences can be compared between normal tissue and cancer tissue at various stages of disease progression. Examples of specific gene products which cosegregate with disease evolution and patient outcome will be presented, and their potential role as clinical markers of disease progression and new therapeutic targets will be discussed.