The University of Queensland has ranked second in the nation in the prestigious 2004 Australian Research Council Federation Fellowships announced today by Minister for Education, Science and Training Dr Brendan Nelson.
UQ has attracted five of the 25 Federation Fellowships – second only to the Australian National University with six fellowships – with two already based at the University and three world-class international researchers who will come to UQ.
The Federation Fellows are regarded as among the best in the world in their fields and the five UQ winners this year follows on from the six the University garnered in 2003.
UQ Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Research) Professor David Siddle said this was an “outstanding” result and spoke volumes for the quality and international standing of UQ research.
“The fact that we have been successful with five Federation Fellows (three of whom are returning from overseas) across a wide range of disciplines reflects positively not only on the calibre of applicants we have attracted, but also on the environment at UQ in which they will work,” Professor Siddle said.
The Federation Fellowships are part of the Government’s $5.3 billion Backing Australia’s Ability program and are designed to attract and keep Australia’s leading researchers and encourage international researchers to Australia.
Each Fellow will receive an indexed annual salary of around $235,000 for five years, making the Fellowships the most valuable publicly-funded support offered in Australia.
The UQ awardees are:
• Professor Michael Nielsen (The University of Queensland), Project: Principles of Quantum Information Science – The use of quantum mechanical systems to carry and process information is enabling a revolution in information technology through innovations such as quantum computation and quantum teleportation. This project investigates the fundamental theory of quantum information science. The project aims to formulate general principles governing the power and behaviour of quantum information. These principles will, in turn, enable the development of powerful new applications of quantum information. Principal areas to be addressed include: general conditions for a physical system to be usable for quantum computation, the development of new algorithms for quantum computers, the development of new quantum communication protocols, and the theory of quantum entanglement;
• Professor Matt Trau (The University of Queensland), Project: Beyond Microarrays: Nano-Scaled Devices for High Throughput Biomolecular Sensing – Current developments in nanoscience and nanotechnology hold many promises in terms of revolutionising our industrial base, transforming biology, medical science and practice. This project strives to achieve some of these aims by, for the first time, building and testing nano-scaled devices with the capability to “read” massive amounts of biological information. With the recent completion of the human genome project, major opportunities exist to provide spectacular advances in human health care (eg, via personalised medicine) provided that appropriate high-throughput biological reading devices can be developed. In developing such devices, this project also aims to substantially catalyse the Australian nanotechnology/biotechnology industry;
• Professor Alan Mark (University of Groningen, Netherlands), Project: Self organization in biomolecular systems: Simulating the folding and aggregation of peptides, proteins and lipids – Molecular self-assembly is a basic property of living systems. Most proteins fold spontaneously and then further self-organize into functional complexes, effectively biological machines. Understanding how this occurs is a fundamental theoretical challenge with widespread application. Work will focus on developing methodology to simulate, computationally, the folding and aggregation of peptides, proteins, and lipids. The aim is to accurately predict the structures of small peptides in solution and to refine crude models of larger molecules (complexes). This will facilitate the development of peptide based therapeutics and is essential in exploiting the growing volume of genetic information in biology and medicine;
• Associate Professor Rachel Wong (Washington University School of Medicine. USA), Project: Assembly of neural circuits during development – This program aims to understand how nerve cells wire up accurately during development. Specifically, the program will determine how neuronal connections are established in the retina to produce a sensory structure essential for vision. The program will also generate innovative tools for watching in live animals, the making and breaking of connections during normal and abnormal development. Discoveries will not only significantly increase our knowledge base of how the nervous system develops or degenerates, but the results will provide crucial information for future studies based on genetic approaches, drug therapies and bioengineering technology to repair the injured nervous system;
• Professor Paul Griffiths (University of Pittsburgh, USA), Project: Biohumanities: Philosophical, Historical, and Socio-Cultural Studies of Contemporary Bioscience – Improving understanding of the meaning and implications of contemporary bioscience, especially genetics and molecular biology, through bioliterate research in the humanities and social sciences, and conversely through better assimilation of bioscience and its significance by the humanities and social sciences. The research will be conducted in close collaboration with the Australian scientific community and will be disseminated back to the scientific community, to the humanities and to the Australian public. The project will bring to Australia the strengths of the applicant’s existing collaborations with leading research centres in this field in the USA, UK and Canada.
For further information about the ARC Federation Fellowships program go to: http://www.arc.gov.au/funded_grants/selection_discovery_fellow.htm
Media: For more information contact Andrew Dunne at UQ Communications (telephone 07 3365 2802).
