The largest UQ award was a massive $1,841,500, which went to Professor Tom Gonda, Dr Brian Gabrielli, Dr Sean Grimmond and Dr Simon Barry from UQ's Centre for Immunology and Cancer Research for their study into Retroviral Expression Cloning Using Arrayed Full Length cDNA Gene Set.
Dr Gabrielli said the money would be used to form the Arrayed Retroviral Expression Cloning Facility, the only one of its kind in the Southern Hemisphere and one of the first in the world.
"The project will enable us to look at the function of every gene in the human genome," he said.
"It has applications in just about every biological process including cancer, neurological diseases and metabolic diseases."
Another significant award to UQ was the $980,250 for Professor Jennifer Stow's projects, one of which is with Dr Rohan Teasdale on Protein Activation in Tumour Cells.
Professor Stow, from UQ's Institute for Molecular Bioscience, will investigate how proteins reach their proper location in the cell and the implications of these processes for cancer and inflammatory diseases.
In particular, her current research looks at the protein known as E-cadherin, which prevents tumour cells from multiplying, but in malignant tumours, this protein malfunctions allowing cancerous tumour cells to spread. This research will help better understand why this protein fails to activate in malignant tumour cells.
"The grant means we can start to explore new areas, using imaging in live cells to find out how tumour suppressors are regulated in cells and possibly how they can be manipulated to stop cells turning into cancer cells," Professor Stow said.
Professor Stow also received an NHMRC Fellowship, brining her total awards to $1.6million.
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Contact: Chris Saxby
61-733-652-479
Research Australia
11-Oct-2005