Prime Minister's prizes for science

The annual Prime Minister's prizes for science and science teaching were awarded last night at Parliament House in Canberra.

Professor David Boger, a laureate professor in chemical engineering at the University of Melbourne and research leader of the Cooperative Research Centre for Bioproducts, received the 2005 Prime Minster's Prize for Science along with a cheque for $300,000, for his pioneering work on fluid mechanics and inventing a way of predicting how non-Newtonian fluids behave.

Boger's work underpins the design of fluids in many industries, such as insecticides that spread evenly on leaves, new drug delivery systems and environmentally friendly disposal of mining waste and clean-up in the Antarctic.

Dr Harvey Millar, a biochemist from the University of Western Australia, was awarded the $50,000 Science Minister's Prize for Life Scientist of the Year in recognition of his early career leadership.

Millar's research focuses on plant mitochondria, the powerhouses of all animal and plant cells, and the proteins they produce.

To date, 500 plant mitochondrial proteins have been identified around the world, 400 of them by Harvey's research team. Now his team is working to understand what all these proteins do -- starting with antioxidants.

The team has identified how plant mitochondria produce vitamin C and other antioxidants to protect cells from free radicals.

Harvey hopes that a better understanding of how mitochondria help plants handle stress will transform the way we breed plants to cope with drought, salinity and other stresses.

To advance his studies, Millar has developed a new facility for protein and proteomic analysis in Perth with AUD$4 million from the ARC. The facility will use one of the most powerful supercomputers in Australia.

Harvey believes his research will bring long-term benefits for Australian agriculture. "I hope that in the long-term applied researchers will be able to pick up our discoveries and use them to make plants more tolerant to drought and other stresses, to control their flowering time, and to produce higher quality products," he said in a statement.

Other prize winners included: Assoc Prof Cameron Kepert, from the University of Sydney, was awarded the $50,000 Malcolm McIntosh Prize for Physical Scientist of the Year for his creation of new materials with unique properties, for example, one of his new materials can substantially improve how we purify drugs and store hydrogen for use as a fuel; Mr Mark Merritt, a Perth science teacher, who was awarded the $50,000 Prime Minister's Prize for Excellence in Science Teaching in Primary Schools was awarded to Perth teacher; and Adelaide teacher Mr Mike Roach, who was awarded the $50,000 Prime Minister's Prize for Excellence in Science Teaching in Secondary Schools.