Our People
- Meet the iGEM team of 2017
- EMCRA updates
- Dr David Williams cited in Nature News Feature
Meet the iGEM team of 2017
iGEM is an annual International Genetically Engineered Machine synthetic biology competition for university students initiated by MIT (Boston, USA). This year, students from Biochemistry/Molecular Biology, Microbiology/Immunology, Genetics, Biomedical Engineering, IT and Business will work together to represent the University in this unique opportunity. The 2017 team, located in the Department of Biochemistry & Molecular Biology and advised by Heung-Chin Cheng and Amber Willems-Jones, will continue to work on the star-shaped protein project (initially pioneered by the 2014 team, then further adapted by the 2016 team with split-inteins located on the end of the star proteins). The 2017 iGEM team aims to improve the efficacy of the previous ‘Star-Scaffold’ project for future biomedical applications.
The team is: Alastair Weng, Tiffany Tsui, Sylvia Hsueh, Anthony Xuan, Benjamin Lam, Emily Sun, Hui-Min Tay, Ray Shen, River Kano, Denham Hopper, Gordon Chua, Ryan Lowe, Mitchell Zheng, Michael Mannoussakis, Naomi Wong, Roger Zhou, Andrew DellaGatta and Oscar Avellan.
Early-Mid Career Researchers Association (EMCRA): Updates
The EMCRA is off to a flying start this year. We’ve already held our first social event, and will be continuing monthly events throughout the year. Please visit and ‘like’ our new Facebook page, which features our brand-new logo, for event announcements and updates. Our social media account is also being used to advertise department seminars, symposiums, and any other events of interest to EMCRs in the School. Please let us know if there is something you want advertised.
Our seed-funding scheme, now termed the ‘EMCRA Collaborative Award’, opens for applications from April 10th. Application forms and guidelines will be circulated via email to the School’s level A & B postdocs, and can also be found on the school intranet . Remember, if you wish to submit an application you must complete a Researcher Profile, using the template circulated to postdocs on March 3rd. If you did not receive that email, please contact us so we can add you to our mailing list.
If you have any queries (or suggestions) for the EMCRA committee, please contact us at sbs-emcra@unimelb.edu.au.
-Susan Northfield, James Ryall & Nichollas Scott (co-chairs of the EMCRA steering committee)
Dr David Williams cited in a recent News Feature that appeared in Nature
Dr David Williams, of the Australian Venom Research Unit (AVRU), Department of Pharmacology and Therapeutics, was one of the world experts on snake bite evenomation who was cited in the article "Snakebites are a growing public health crisis".