Prime Minister’s Prizes for Science 2010

Prime Minister’s Science Prizes 2010

Left to Right: The Hon Julia Gillard MP, Prime Minister of Australia, Professor John Shine, Senator The Hon Kim Carr, Minister for Innovation, Industry, Science & Research

The Prime Minister’s Prizes for Science were presented by the Prime Minister and the Innovation Minister at the Prize Dinner in the Great Hall of Parliament House on Wednesday 17 November. [continue reading…]

GGAGG—five letters that launched a biotechnology revolution: 2010 winner of the Prime Minister’s Prize for Science

John Shine

As a PhD student at the Australian National University, John Shine discovered the importance of a brief sequence of genetic code. It took him three years to determine that sequence and what it does. At its core are five letters—GGAGG—which tell ribosomes, the protein factories in all living things, to start making a protein.

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Finding a cancer gene’s day job: making blood stem cells: 2010 winner of The Science Minister’s Prize for Life Scientist of the Year

Benjamin Kile

Benjamin Kile is unravelling the secrets of blood in a series of discoveries at the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute for Medical Research in Melbourne.

He has discovered why platelets—the blood cells responsible for clotting—have a short shelf life at the blood bank. There’s a molecular clock ticking away that triggers cell death.

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