Tuesday, 2 December 2008

Students from The University of Western Australia have won more than half the 15 Science and Innovation Studentship Awards on offer from the State Department of Industry and Resources.

Nine UWA students will receive $7000 each to enable them to carry out scientific research with a Western Australian company of their choice for 10 weeks.

Scholarship recipients from UWA:

Rebecca Colvin (West Leederville), who will work with Proteomics International on a new approach to treat oxidative stress, which is the effect of free radicals on the body, before the development of cellular damage.

Aanandini Ganesalingam (Willetton), who will work with Canola Breeders Western Australia investigating the characteristics of hybrid canola with a special focus on its greater seedling vigour and stress tolerance compared with traditional types.

Dominic Ho (Applecross), who will work with iCeutica on optimising their nanodrug formulations by determining the impact excipients have on the nanodrugs.  Pharmaceutical companies are moving towards nano sized drugs due to their more efficient pharmacological properties.

Richard Jacoby (Greenwood), who will work with InterGrain to identify biomarkers which indicate stress tolerance and stress susceptibility in wheat.  The identification of the biomarkers has the potential to produce higher wheat yields and increase the productivity of low-input agricultural operations.

Amos Ngoi (Canning Vale), who will work with the Lions Eye Institute to contribute to the development of a simple, quick, cheap and non-invasive screening tool that can diagnose cataracts by a variety of health care workers.

James Rixson (Gosnells), who will work with Epichem to investigate possible phenylephrine (decongestant) derived drugs for the treatment of African Sleeping Sickness, a fatal parasitic, vector-borne disease that affects hundreds of thousands of people world-wide.

Vidya Seenarain (Spearwood), who will work with Proteomics International, in conjunction with Dr Livia Hool's laboratory, to identify biomarkers of cardiac hypertrophy (a thickening of the heart muscle) in cardiac muscle cells that have been exposed to oxidative stress.

Ross Thyer (Lesmurdie), who will work with the Western Australian Institute for Medical Research to investigate a new screening system to identify interacting proteins in living cells and novel methods of bacterial protein production.

Louise Walker (Dianella), who will work with the Lions Eye Institute toward the development of a treatment for microbial infections of the cornea.  Microbial keratitis is a rapidly progressing and severely painful eye condition which causes more than 1.5 million new cases of monocular blindness worldwide each year.

For more information about the scholarships visit: https://www.mediastatements.wa.gov.au/Pages/Results.aspx?ItemID=130959

Media references

Janine MacDonald (UWA Public Affairs)  (+61 8)  6488 5563  /  (+61 4) 32 637 716

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