Bio21 Researchers' ARC Linkage Success

The ARC Linkage Project funding outcomes were announced 7 July 2015.

Congratulations to Bio21 researchers, Ary Hoffmann, Rhy Coleman and Edward Tsyrlin (BioSciences) and Paul Donnelly (Chemistry) for their successful applications.

Teaming up with Melbourne Water/Melbourne Water Corporation, the Hoffman project aims to provide rapid diagnostic detection of environmental change in aquatic ecosystems at reduced cost.

Next-generation sequencing (NGS) can transform monitoring of aquatic ecosystems by identifying many species in multiple biological samples. This project aims to use NGS technology to identify macroinvertebrate species as biological indicators in urban freshwater ecosystems to provide more rapid, sensitive and cost-effective monitoring compared to traditional methods. The project uses DNA barcodes that identify species to detect species in samples processed with NGS. The project also plans to use previously collected samples to explore species diversity and detect indicator species.

The project is being funded $211,242 over three years.

Together with Clarity Pharmaceuticals Pty Ltd, Donnelly's project aims to develop fundamental synthetic coordination chemistry directed toward the development of new agents for imaging brain perfusion using positron emission tomography.

"The Linkage grant will allow us to pursue our fundamental research into new metal-based diagnostic imaging agents and pursue their translation into the clinic with the aid of the industry partner," said Paul.

The research will focus on developing new coordination complexes containing positron-emitting isotopes of copper, gallium and fluorine. The goal is incorporate in these radionuclides into small molecules that can be used for the molecular imaging of the brain. This chemistry will have the potential to replace existing technologies that rely on single-photon emission from technetium and the technique of single photon emission computed tomography.

This project has received funding of $365,000 over three years.

You can find the list of successful ARC linkage applications on the ARC website.