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Created: 09 December 2015

Dr Tom Caradoc-Davies loads protein crystal samples into the path of the synchrotron beam on the Micro Crystallography (MX2) beamline, site of the new ACRF Detector.

Research across the country into how cancers begin and spread is set to be turbocharged, after the Australian Cancer Research Foundation (ACRF) last night awarded $2 million in funding for a new detector that will provide faster protein analysis at the Australian Synchrotron.

The ACRF Detector will enable the shape and function of proteins to be analysed on the Australian Synchrotron’s Micro Crystallography (MX2) beamline in a fraction of the time taken currently, providing a ten-fold increase in capacity crucial to accelerating cancer drug development.

Professor Michael Parker, Deputy Director of St Vincent’s Institute of Medical Research in Melbourne and co-Principal Investigator on the successful grant, says the ACRF investment in this key cancer research technology, available at only a handful of other synchrotron facilities around the world, will lead to better outcomes for people living with the disease.

‘Importantly, by increasing the capacity for drug development research in Australia, it is Australians with cancer who will be the first to benefit as novel treatments move from laboratories into clinical trials at our public hospitals.

Professor Parker says proteins, large molecules essential to all living organisms, are crucial to understanding disease and treatment targets.

‘With malfunctioning proteins causing many diseases, including cancer, arming researchers with clear representations of protein structures supports efforts to design drugs that target particular proteins, to boost their anti-cancer properties or suppress their cancer-enabling effects.’

Professor Andrew Peele, Director of the Australian Synchrotron, says the ACRF Detector will liberate researchers on the MX2 beamline, which is now at capacity.

‘The brilliant light of the MX2 beamline allows us to investigate the arrangement and activity of molecules involved in cancer and cancer treatments at a level of detail that is not possible at any other Australian research facility.

‘The increase in speed and quality of the data from the ACRF Detector is akin to shifting from dial-up to broadband, enabling more and better research outcomes that will improve our ability to combat disease.’

Professor Ian Brown, Chief Executive ACRF, says the new ACRF Detector will significantly increase protein analysis capability in Australia.

‘We hope research into even more protein structures and drug targets will enable the development of new treatments for cancer that could be produced in Australia and applied worldwide.

‘Most importantly, more researchers will gain answers much faster, shortening the time from laboratory research to the clinical testing of new cancer drugs.’

The ACRF Detector at the Australian Synchrotron will be operational in 2017; the investigative team leaders are Professor Andrew Peele from the Australian Synchrotron; Professor Michael Parker, St Vincent’s Institute for Medical Research; Professor Jamie Rossjohn and Professor James Whisstock, ARC Centre of Excellence in Advanced Molecular Imaging and Monash University; Dr Peter Czabotar, Walter and Eliza Hall Institute for Medical Research and Professor Charles Bond, The University of Western Australia.

MediaRelease.pdf

Media coverage:

·         'Science beams', Herald Sun, Thursday 10 December 2015

·         ‘Cancer drug development gets boost with $2m grant to Australian Synchrotron’, ABC News online, Thursday 10 December 2015

·         ‘Professor Andrew Peele discusses the ACRF Detector at the Australian Synchrotron’ on Triple R 102.7 FM, Wednesday 23 December 2015

Find out more:

·         Visit Australian Cancer Research Foundation for the latest on their work enabling and equipping cancer research scientists to achieve things tomorrow that they could only dream of today

·         For news, information and leading opinion on cancer treatment, prevention, diagnosis and cure, visit home.cancerresearch

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Created: 07 December 2015

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull announces details of the National Innovation and Science Agenda, with Industry, Innovation and Science Minister Christopher Pyne at CSIRO in Canberra today.

A $520 million, ten-year investment in operations will allow the Australian Synchrotron to further empower Australian researchers and industry to problem solve and innovate, with the Federal Government today announcing new funding for the landmark facility through the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation (ANSTO).

Speaking from Canberra at the release of the National Innovation and Science Agenda, Professor Andrew Peele, Director of the Synchrotron, said the long-term security will have dual benefits for the facility, the only one of its kind in Australia.

‘For many years now, securing ongoing funding has been a priority focus and has held us back from being able to put long-term plans in place.

‘Operational funding on this scale gives us the room we need to grow, to seek new partnerships, and to expand our beamline infrastructure to increase both the capacity and capability of the synchrotron.

‘This will make the Australian Synchrotron not only a formidable science facility, but a true research hub,’ he said.

Professor Peele said the announcement speaks volumes of ANSTO’s experience and expertise in operating landmark research infrastructure.

‘In adding this cutting-edge facility to ANSTO’s world-class line up of research platforms, the Federal Government recognises the importance of the Synchrotron to Australian research.’

Professor Peele acknowledged the ongoing support the facility has received from the research community and governments, including the Victorian Government, which was the driving force behind the synchrotron’s construction.

‘We will, of course, remain based within Victoria and I thank the Victorian Government for its incredible support – taking this from a concept to one of the most productive and effective synchrotron facilities in the world; with this announcement we can now repay that support by cementing the place of the Australian Synchrotron as one of the truly great national research facilities.’

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Created: 06 December 2015

2015 Australian Synchrotron Stephen Wilkins Thesis Medallist Dr Donna Whelan in her new laboratory at New York University in United States.

Dr Donna Whelan, 28, whose early career has taken her from Noble Park to New York City, has taken out a prestigious annual Australian Synchrotron award for her novel approach to comparing two powerful microscopy techniques to improve imaging of cells beyond the naked eye.

Dr Whelan, who completed her PhD at Monash University using the Australian Synchrotron and who is completing postdoctoral studies at New York University in the United States, was awarded the 2015 Australian Synchrotron Stephen Wilkins Thesis Medal for her research, which included designing a new approach to ‘super-resolution’ microscopy to visualise and investigate DNA, informed by synchrotron science.

Dr Toby Bell, School of Chemistry at Monash University and Dr Whelan’s PhD supervisor, says Dr Whelan’s insight, gained by combining the super-resolution technique with live-cell imaging on the Infrared Spectroscopy (IR) beamline at the Australian Synchrotron, will improve how these techniques can work in tandem to help scientists peer deep into individual cells.

‘Using the bright light of the IR beamline at the Australian Synchrotron, Donna investigated cells when alive, when dehydrated, and when “fixed” with chemicals, before taking the fixed samples back to the laboratory at Monash, on the same day, to image the fine structure of the cells under a superresolution microscope.

‘Comparing the images, Donna noted the outer cytoskeleton of a cell could be well preserved during chemical fixing despite otherwise rampant destruction of the cell, an observation only the synchrotron beam could enable – similarly, super-resolution microscopy allowed detection of very subtle structural damage to cells, incurred during the IR beamline experiments.’

Dr Bell says these observations into how preparing and managing cells in experiments can interfere with samples and affect results will inform new approaches for researchers to better combine the two powerful, but different, techniques.

Professor Andrew Peele, Director of the Australian Synchrotron, says with such innovative research, Dr Whelan is a worthy recipient of the Stephen Wilkins Thesis Medal, named in honour of synchrotron pioneer Stephen Wilkins.

‘Science is founded on experimentation and collaboration, which Donna has displayed excellently in articulating how two microscopy techniques can work together to give researchers better information about their biological samples.

‘The thesis medal honours Stephen Wilkins’ creativity and his devotion to nurturing the next generation of scientists, and we wish Donna well as her career builds in the United States.’

Accepting the medal on Dr Whelan’s behalf, father Jim says he was very proud, but not surprised by his eldest daughter’s accolade.

‘Donna has always put in 100 per cent and left no stone unturned in her science – the hard work truly pays off and now she’s living the dream.’

 
The Thesis Medal is awarded annually to the PhD student at an Australian or New Zealand University who is judged to have completed the most outstanding thesis of the past two years whose work was undertaken at and acknowledges the Australian Synchrotron, or the Australian National Beamline Facility (ANBF), or whose work acknowledges and was undertaken under the auspices of the International Synchrotron Access Program (ISAP) or the ASRP.