Recognising women in science
Three young women scientists have been recognised with the 2013 L’Oréal for Women in Science Fellowships, announced last night.
The southern states are well represented, with two of the winners from Melbourne and one from Hobart.
Dr Kathryn Holt from the Bio21 Institute at the University of Melbourne is using genetics, maths and supercomputers to study the whole genome of pathogenic bacteria and working out how they spread.
She has been using these techniques to track the spread of a typhoid epidemic in Kathmandu. She found that the disease doesn’t spread in the way it was thought. Her research has been published in Nature Genetics and will change how epidemics are responded to.
Dr Holt will use her L’Oréal For Women in Science Fellowship to understand how antibiotic-resistant bacteria spread in Melbourne hospitals.
Marine geoscientist Dr Joanne Whittaker from the Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies at the University of Tasmania in Hobart researches the formation of continents.
With the help of Australia’s national marine research vessels, and now her L’Oréal Fellowship, Dr Whittaker is reconstructing how the Indian, Australian and Antarctic tectonic plates separated over the past 200 million years, forming the Indian Ocean and the continents as we see them today. This information will help model climate change better, find new gas resources, and understand the dynamics of continents.
T lymphocytes are the focus of Dr Misty Jenkins’ research at the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre in Melbourne. Her work on understanding whether cancer cells emit a ‘distress call’ when under lethal attack from healthy T cells is generating a greater understanding of the immune system and how to better manage T cells to defeat disease..
The winning Fellows were chosen from 230 applicants by a panel of eminent scientists. The Fellowship funds are intended to further the Fellows’ research and may be used for any expenses they incur, including childcare. The program is part of L’Oréal’s global support for women in science.
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