Indonesian and Australian scientists test new TB vaccine targets for the TB fight in Indonesia and Australia

Operations on 22 March, 2016

World TB Day on March 24 reminds us of the growing TB threat

Scientists available for interview in English and Bahasa Indonesia for World TB Day. Read the release in Bahasa Indonesia.
More images below.

Better vaccines are needed for the global fight against tuberculosis (TB). The Global Fund reports an estimated nine million new cases globally per year of TB, which is second only to AIDS as the world’s most deadly infectious disease. Indonesia had more than 320,000 reported cases in 2014 according to the World Health Organization, while Australia’s reported cases were just over 1,000. But the rise of drug-resistant TB poses a threat to all countries.

Two proteins from the tuberculosis bacterium have shown promising results in investigations in mice for a new vaccine. Scientists from the Centenary Institute and the University of Sydney, with colleagues at Universitas Gadjah Mada (UGM) in Yogyakarta, have found that the injected proteins can prime the immune system to induce protection against TB in mice.

The team has established a laboratory and immunological techniques to test if the two proteins from the tuberculosis bacterium can be used as the basis for a vaccine. Credit: Centenary Institute

The team has established a laboratory and immunological techniques to test if the two proteins from the tuberculosis bacterium can be used as the basis for a vaccine. Credit: Centenary Institute

Read More about Indonesian and Australian scientists test new TB vaccine targets for the TB fight in Indonesia and Australia

Using diet to cope with the aftermath of stroke

Operations on 12 November, 2013

Connie Wong 1_LR$25,000 Centenary Institute Lawrence Creative Prize goes to young Melbourne researcher

One of Australia’s most creative young medical researchers has won a $25,000 prize to help her develop her ideas on how diet could prevent stroke deaths.

Connie Wong thinks we may be able to prevent early deaths following stroke with a fibre-based diet. She initially used innovative microscope techniques to determine how stroke weakens the immune system. Now she is studying how it also induces leakiness in the gut wall, leading to infection and an upsurge in deaths. And the solution may well lie in diet.

Read More about Using diet to cope with the aftermath of stroke

Keeping our best young bioscience brains in Australia

Operations on 8 November, 2013

Centenary Institute Lawrence Creative Prize to be announced, finalists from Melbourne and Sydney

The winner of the Centenary Institute Lawrence Creative Prize will be announced at 6.30 pm, Tuesday 12 November 2013, at a reception hosted by UBS in Sydney.

There are three finalists. On Tuesday we will find out who is the overall winner of the $25,000 prize. The two runners-up will each receive $5,000.

Read More about Keeping our best young bioscience brains in Australia

Simple cough could save lives from TB

Toni on 26 March, 2013

A community-wide screening program being trialled in Vietnam aims to create a new model for global TB control

In the 1950s and 1960s Australians were accustomed to having regular chest x-rays in a caravan, parked in their suburb, to screen for TB. During this time TB almost (but not quite) disappeared from Australia and the program was phased out.

Now Australian researchers from the Centenary Institute, Woolcock Institute of Medical Research and the Centre of Research Excellence on TB Control will assess the potential for a similar program of regular community-wide screening to have the same impact on TB in Vietnam, a country in which TB is still very common and costs many lives. However, instead of x-rays the team will use a new molecular test that is performed on sputum coughed up from patient’s lungs to detect TB. They hope their work will serve as a model for countries with a high burden of TB in our region and elsewhere.

Read More about Simple cough could save lives from TB

Sydney scientists on the hunt for faster TB diagnosis for China’s millions of TB cases

Toni on 14 March, 2013

China’s Ningxia Hospital sees more TB cases a year than the whole of Australia. ci-logo
A new project at the hospital, in collaboration with researchers from the Centenary Institute in Sydney, aims to identify a new way of diagnosing TB and monitoring response to treatment. The research is funded in part by the Australian Respiratory Council.

Read More about Sydney scientists on the hunt for faster TB diagnosis for China’s millions of TB cases

Keeping our best young bioscience brains in Australia: Centenary Institute Lawrence Creative Prize

Tamzin on 14 November, 2012

The winner of the Centenary Institute Lawrence Creative Prize will be announced at 12.30 pm, Thursday 15 November 2012, at a lunch at UBS in Sydney.

He will receive $25,000, and a glass trophy designed by Australian sculptor Nick Mount.

The 2012 finalists are:

  • Robert McLaughlin, a medical engineer from the University of Western Australia (UWA), who has developed an optical probe that fits inside a hypodermic needle and can help surgeons accurately determine the boundaries of breast cancer tumours.
  • Marc Pellegrini, from Melbourne’s Walter and Eliza Hall Institute (WEHI), whose discoveries about how the body regulates its immune system are being applied to clinical trials of cancer vaccines and treatments for HIV and hepatitis.
  • Jian Yang, from the Diamantina Institute at the University of Queensland, who has solved a major puzzle of missing heritability by developing software and methods to determine the multiple genes involved in conditions such as schizophrenia, obesity and diabetes.

Starving prostate cancer

Science in Public on 2 November, 2011


Prostate cancers are hungry, growing cells. Now we know how to cut off their food supply thanks to research to be published later this month in Cancer Research—work funded by Movember and the Prostate Cancer Foundation of Australia

Researchers at the Centenary Institute in Sydney have discovered a potential future treatment for prostate cancer—through starving the tumour cells of an essential nutrient they need to grow rapidly. Read More about Starving prostate cancer

$25,000 Lawrence Creative Prize awarded for breast cancer research

Operations on 19 October, 2011

Posted on behalf of the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute for Medical Research

Discovery of the cellular ‘link’ between female hormones and the development of breast cancer has earned Walter and Eliza Hall Institute researcher Dr Marie-Liesse Asselin-Labat the inaugural Lawrence Creative Prize from the Centenary Institute. Read More about $25,000 Lawrence Creative Prize awarded for breast cancer research