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Grain growers in Australia's lower rainfall areas are welcoming efforts from oilseed breeders such as Mr Wayne Burton to develop and produce canola quality Brassica juncea. Such crops offer a viable alternative to cereals in their cropping rotations.
The canola industry is fast expanding in Australia. This expansion together with the efforts by major international corporations to develop gene technology products means that it's critical that Australian breeding programs have access to new technologies to remain competitive in world markets.
An economically viable canola quality Brassica juncea will also help overcome environmental problems associated with low rainfall cropping systems. It's expected that canola quality B. juncea will reduce soil erosion and replace fallow, a major source of groundwater recharge and salinity.
Based in Horsham, Mr Burton is the Oilseeds Manager/Breeder with the Victorian Institute of Dryland Agriculture (DNRE). He's responsible for breeding programs in Brassica napus and Brassica juncea. If canola quality B. juncea is successful, it will increase the options open to dry area farmers, who are currently limited in the crops they can use in rotation with cereals.
Mr Burton, the only Brassica juncea breeder in Australia, will travel to Canada and the USA to work with other world leaders in the development of this new oilseed. He says that while the drought and heat tolerance of Brassica juncea is appealing, much more work is required to develop an oilseed strain that is high quality, disease resistant and can be adapted to the Australian climate.
His Victoria Fellowship will enable him access and training with the latest technology, techniques and advanced germplasm that's available within Canada.
Mr Burton is currently studying his PhD part-time. He has a Bachelor of Agricultural Sciences (Honours) from the University of Adelaide, and comes from a farming background.
The successful development of the Australian Olympic Team 'Superbike' using aerospace technologies was the catalyst for Dr Phillip Crothers to pursue a career in aerospace engineering.
Currently a Research Engineer with Hawker de Havilland, Dr Crothers is now investigating the development of a series of actively controlled and off-the-shelf robots that could be used by Australia's manufacturing industry in place of the more traditional, large, costly and inflexible machining systems.
According to Dr Crothers, once developed, this technology would significantly enhance Hawker de Havilland capability, adding considerably to its ability to secure work from Boeing and Airbus. It would also enhance the company's ability to attract domestic and international investment.
He intends to use his Victoria Fellowship to visit Europe and North America to pursue product, logistic and research parameters for this novel concept. Developing and marketing this technology would also help establish the local robotic supplier, ABB, as a global Centre of Excellence for such equipment and establish Hawker de Havilland, CRC for Intelligent Manufacturing Systems and Technologies and CSIRO Division of Manufacturing and Technology as excellent technology and knowledge centres.
Dr Crothers completed a PhD in the Department of Aerospace Engineering at RMIT University. He has a Bachelor of Engineering (Aerospace) First Class Honours from RMIT University.
A childhood fascination with infectious diseases led Mr Paul Cullen into the world of science, and more specifically to the disease Leptospirosis.
Difficult to diagnose, the disease's symptoms are as vague as influenza but, untreated, can lead to renal failure, haemorrhages and death. It's one of the most prevalent zoonoses (a disease transmitted from animals to humans). In Australia last year there were 234 notified cases of the disease, mainly among dairy farmers, veterinarians and people working in abattoirs. The disease accounts for some ten percent of hospital admissions in the world's tropics. There are no vaccines currently licensed for human use in Australia.
Mr Cullen is undertaking research investigating the bacteria Leptospira as a doctoral student. His work has led to the separation and identification of proteins from the surface of Leptospira. This fundamental knowledge about the surface components of Leptospira has the potential to be used in the development of a vaccine as well as a diagnostic kit for people at risk from the disease.
He will travel to the US as part of his Victoria Fellowship to work with world experts in preparing and testing these novel proteins as potential vaccine components for both humans and animals. He says that such a development would generate significant revenue for Australia, as well as help reduce the morbidity and mortality associated worldwide with leptospirosis.
Mr Cullen is completing PhD studies investigating the bacteria Leptospira at the Bacterial Pathogenesis Research Group, Department of Microbiology, Monash University. The Bacterial Pathogenesis Research Group, of which Mr Cullen is member, is currently engaged in sequencing the genome of Leptospira, funded by the Federal Government's medical genomics program.
M Cullen has a Bachelor of Science Honours degree, majoring in Immunology and Microbiology from Monash University.
Heart attacks and strokes are the two leading causes of death and disability in Australia. They are caused by the development of a blood clot in the circulation to the heart or the brain. However, despite the importance of blood clotting, scientists haven't been able to clearly determine how clots form.
Ms Suhasini Kulkarni, a Research Scientist at the Australian Centre for Blood Diseases, Box Hill Hospital, has developed a new technique to study how blood clots form. Her work involved studying multiple platelet receptors and proteins in the blood. Ultimately she hopes that her work will lead to the development of a new generation of anti-clotting drugs that will be more powerful in preventing heart attacks and strokes.
Ms Kulkarni will use her Victoria Fellowship to travel to the USA and England to acquire expertise in fast scanning laser microscopy. This technology isn't currently available in Australia. She expects to learn more about how to use it to refine her novel in vitro and in vivo models for the formation of blood clots. Her Victoria Fellowship will lead to the Australian Centre for Blood Diseases becoming the first laboratory in Australia, and one of two in the world, to be able to show thrombosis in real-time.
Currently undertaking a PhD in medicine at Monash University, Ms Kulkarni graduated from Monash University with Bachelor of Science, First Class Honours in 1997. The Australian Vascular Biology Society named her Young Investigator of the Year in 1999. Ms Kulkarni says that her interest in science began in Year 8 and was fostered by good teachers and a healthy interest in learning more about why things didn't work as they should.
It's a long leap from being a dance teacher to helping mining companies around the world to find environmentally friendly ways of disposing of tailings.
Dr Fiona Sofra has taken the change of pace in her stride, however. She's a co-director and Principal Consultant of the Melbourne-based Rheological Consulting Services (RCS) Pty Ltd. The company provides advice to the mining industry in Australia and overseas about how to process tailings in an environmentally acceptable and economically viable manner. Her work is particularly critical in an era of increasing environmental legislation.
Mining companies, for example, are now faced with having to consider new ways of disposing of waste material. Using large amounts of water is no longer acceptable, reclamation and rehabilitation are difficult and lengthy and tailings dams have a history of failure through leakage and instability.
Dr Sofra will use her Victoria Fellowship to meet with other world leaders involved in dry tailing research. She will travel to Chile, South Africa, the US and Europe to gain further knowledge about newly developed dry tailing techniques that are being used in arid areas around the world. She expects the study mission will enable her to develop RCS's present reputation as leader in its area, thereby increasing its international commercial profile.
Dr Sofra completed her PhD studies in rheology at the University of Melbourne. She left school having completed Year 11 to study Dance at the Arts Educational College in London. She returned to Australia to complete her studies and to renew her love of science in 1992. She has an honours degree in Chemical Engineering from the University of Melbourne. She says that rheology is living proof that science is absolutely pertinent to our everyday lives. 'From the moment we wake up, anything that flows from a tap, snakes out of a tube when squeezed, or changes shape or moves when you stir it can be related to rheology. It influences everything we do, we just don't realise it.'
Since 1998, Dr Wenyi Wang has been involved in developing several advanced techniques to diagnose gearbox failures in helicopters. It's vital and exacting work that saves both lives and money and can be applied to any machine with a gearbox.
Working as a Research Scientist at the Aeronautical and Maritime Research Laboratory with the Defence Science and Technology Organisation (DSTO), Dr Wang's work allows helicopter operators to detect and diagnose mechanical faults before they occur. His work, among others, is contributing to the DSTO's reputation as a world leader in gearbox fault diagnostics.
Dr Wang plans to use the support of the 2001 Victoria Fellowship to attend international conferences and to visit the US, England and France to set up collaborative research programs with leading organisations working in machine diagnostics and prognostics. The US military initiated advanced machine fault prognostic technology after the Cold War in the early 1990s and a centre of expertise for prognostics is being set up at the US Navy. He intends to concentrate on machine prognostic technology, which can be applied to the defence, power and mining industries in Australia as well as assisting defence operations.
Dr Wang completed a Master of Science at Huazhong University of Science and Technology (China) and a Doctorate in Mechanical Engineering at the University of New South Wales. He has published over 35 papers.
