02 9541 3500ATA Scientific Travel Award Winners – Apr 2012
ATA Scientific would like to thank all those that participated in the Feb/Mar issue of our Travel Award promotion. After receiving an overwhelming response two winners were announced.
Congratulations to our first prize winner Miss Crystal Naudin, a second year PhD student with the Experimental Oncology unit at Newcastle University. Crystal works with her supervisor Dr Jude Weidenhofer, Research Fellow at the School of Biomedical Sciences & Pharmacy, University of Newcastle.
Researchers at the school that Crystal is a member of are primarily concerned with the study of cancer cell biology and the genetic basis of human diseases. Crystal is currently working on a family of cell membrane proteins called Tetraspanins. A recent mouse model generated in Crystal’s laboratory, in which one of the Tetraspanin genes (CD151) was knocked out, unexpectedly developed a severe early onset of kidney disease. As a result Crystal is working on determining the role of the CD151 molecule in kidney function.
When advised of her prize, Crystal told ATA Scientific“That is awesome. So excited. That should definitely cover registration and accommodation for the Tetraspanin conference!!“ This is the just the second time Crystal had entered one of our competitions. Crystal will present her work at the 5th European Tetraspanin Meeting in Nijmegen, The Netherlands from 26th-28th of September this year.
Congratulations to our second prize winner Fanny de Busserolles, PhD candidate at the School of Animal Biology (Neuroecology and Behaviour) and The Ocean Institute at the University of Western Australia. The group is involved in studying the sensory systems of a wide range of animals such as birds, reptiles, mammals, fish, sharks etc. Fanny’s research focuses on the visual system the lanternfish family, a family of deep-sea fish. Her work looks at gaining a better understanding of fish visual adaptations to their environment and in this particular case how the visual system of these species have adapted to see in dark conditions and for viewing biololuminescence in the deep-sea.
The prize money will be used towards Fanny attending the 2012 Australian Marine Science Society Association (AMSA) Conference (‘Marine Extremes and Everything in between’) to be held in Hobart in July 2012. Fanny will be talking about her exciting science on viewing bioluminescence by lanternfish in the deep-sea.
We would like to thank all those that participated. The next Travel Award for April/May 2012 is now available on our website.
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