Eureka Awards wrap-up: life scientists hitting the heights

Life scientists have once again put in a strong showing in Australian science’s night of nights: the Eureka Awards, held in Sydney last night.

The Sherman Eureka Prize for Environmental Research was awarded to a multi-disciplinary team that has been researching conservation of the Tasmanian devil.

The team includes Dr Menna Jones from the School of Zoology at the University of Tasmania; Professor Hamish McCallum, head of the School of Environment at Griffith University; Associate Professor Kathy Belov, from the Faculty of Veterinary Science at the University of Sydney; Associate Professor Greg Woods at the Menzies Research Institute Tasmania; and Anne-Maree Pearse, from the Save the Tasmanian Devil program at the state’s Animal Health Laboratory.

Collectively they’re known, appropriately enough, as the Devils’ Advocates.

Before seeking to develop a vaccine for the Tasmanian devil’s facial tumour disease, the team studied the immune system of the devil and the nature of the offending tumours. The researchers now have a diagnostic test for the cancer and have discovered that the devils possess a competent immune system. Early results showing that in some devils immunisation with tumour cells leads to an immune response which provides encouragement that vaccination is achievable.

The Australian Research Council Eureka Prize for Excellence in Research by an Interdisciplinary Team was awarded to Professor Mark Kendall from the Australian Institute for Bioengineering and Nanotechnology at the University of Queensland and his team for the development of the needle-free vaccine delivery system, Nanopatch.

The Nanopatch vaccination team includes engineers, mathematicians, materials scientists and immunologists. It also receives input from the laboratories of cervical cancer vaccine inventor Professor Ian Frazer, the Translational Research Institute at Brisbane’s Princess Alexandra Hospital; Professor Michael Roberts, director of the Therapeutics Research Unit at Queensland University’s School of Medicine; and the University of Melbourne’s Professor Lorena Brown from the Department of Immunology and Microbiology.

The Australian Infectious Diseases Research Centre at the University of Queensland Eureka Prize for Infectious Diseases Research was awarded to Professor Alan Cowman from the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research and his team for work on a malaria vaccine.

The team includes Dr Wai-Hong Tham, Dr Julie Healer, Tony Triglia, Sash Lopaticki and Jennifer Thompson. Their research has led to a better understanding of how the malaria parasite evades the human immune system and beats anti-malarial drugs. It has also revealed much about how the malaria parasite invades and remodels the human red blood cell.

While researchers have been hunting for a malaria vaccine for decades, these attempts have been based on antigens – a substance that triggers an immune response by the body – discovered 20 to 30 years ago.

At that time there was little scientific knowledge of their function or importance to the parasite. During a decade of research, the Cowman team has sought to reverse this barrier in a thorough study of P. falciparum, identifying the important proteins required for its growth and survival, and analysing how the parasite survives inside humans.

Importantly, the team has identified two proteins – EBL and PfRh – that appear critical to malaria’s survival. The researchers have shown they are essential proteins for red blood cell invasion, identified regions of functional importance within these proteins and determined which regions would generate antibodies that would profoundly inhibit parasite invasion.

The research has also shown they are linked to the development of protective immunity and have harnessed this to develop a multi-component vaccine from these two proteins. Trials in rabbits of this vaccine have shown the antibodies produced in response block the entry of the malaria parasite into red blood cells.

The NSW Department of Trade and Investment Jamie Callachor Eureka Prize for Medical Research Translation was awarded to Professor Murray Esler and Associate Professor Markus Schlaich, from the Baker IDI Heart & Diabetes Institute, who have shown how high blood pressure is linked to over-stimulation of the kidneys by a sympathetic nervous system. They have used this insight to trial a novel catheter-based treatment to nullify the nerves and lower blood pressure.

The 3M Eureka Prize for Emerging Leader in Science was awarded to Associate Professor Kevin Pfleger, who has taken us on in his quest to improve treatments for conditions as disparate as drug addiction, prostate disorders and kidney failure.

This creative approach to research has placed the 33-year-old, who is head of molecular endocrinology at the Western Australian Institute for Medical Research, firmly on the world stage.

Associate Professor Pfleger’s work focuses on the G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs), which are found on the surface of human cells. About half of all therapeutic drugs work by interacting with these receptors. Such interactions could be the reason for many drug side-effects, so understanding how this process works is critical for improving therapies.

To further that insight, Associate Professor Pfleger has co-invented the GPCR Heterodimer Identification Technology, which identifies and studies receptor interactions at the molecular level. The technology improves screening for the pharmaceutical industry, which has to test hundreds of thousands of compounds in the search for potential new drugs.

The underlying expertise that is informing this work is Bioluminescence Resonance Energy Transfer (BRET) technology, a field in which Associate Professor Pfleger is considered a world expert. BRET uses proteins from the sea pansy and jellyfish that produce the blue light (bioluminescence) and yellow light (fluorescence) seen in these marine organisms. When these proteins are stuck to receptors being studied in human cells, drug responses are monitored by measuring the different lights.

Associate Professor Pfleger’s approach is fast gaining a foothold in the commercial arena through biotech company Dimerix Bioscience, where he holds the position of chief scientific officer. Collaborations with major international companies are already putting the technology to the test.

ALS would like to heartily congratulate all Eureka Prize winners.