November 2011

Lee Xin Chong represented our group at the RACI Inorganic Symposium at Monash University with her lecture entitled “The Copper Protection Enzyme CueO: How It Works”.

October 2011

Our former colleague Dr Karrera Djoko (now at the University of Queensland) has married Dr Robert Borthwick, who was also a colleague here at Bio21 Institute (with Professor Andrew Holmes).

September 2011

Saumya Udagedara has successfully completed the probationary period of her PhD degree.

Simon James has received news that his PhD thesis has been accepted: “Influence of Perturbed Copper Homeostasis in Protein Aggregation and Neurodegenerative Disease”. His project was a collaboration with Professor Ashley Bush (Victorian Mental Health Institute).

August 2011

Professor Wedd presented a lecture entitled “The Challenge of Using the Fluorescent Sensor CS1 to Track Intracellular Copper” at the Fifteenth International Conference on Biological Inorganic Chemistry (ICBIC15) in Vancouver, Canada.

He also visited Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico in Mexico City for research discussions with Professors Peter Kroneck and Martha E. Sosa-Torres of the Faculty of Chemistry. He presented a lecture entitled “How Does Biology Cope with Copper? It is Toxic but Essential”.

July 2011

Lee Xin Chong presented a lecture entitled “The Copper Enzyme CueO Detoxifies Excess Copper” at the East Coast Protein Meeting at Coffs Harbour, NSW.

June 2011

Professor Wedd presented a lecture entitled “Metallo-Oxidase Enzymes” at the Symposium in Honour of Professor Hans C. Freeman at the University of Sydney. Professor Freeman was famous for solving the first structure of a copper protein, the electron carrier plastocyanin. He also was instrumental in supporting biological inorganic chemistry in Australia and in the advent of the Australian Synchrotron.

March 2011

Dr Zhiguang Xiao represented the Group at the Bio21 Institute Seminar. He outlined the range of our work on copper transporting proteins, with an emphasis on the characterisation of CopK which binds both Cu(I) and Cu(II) cooperatively (work of Lee Xin Chong with structural collaborators Mark Hinds (WEHI) and Megan Maher (University of Sydney).

February 2011

Jens Brose has successfully completed the probationary period of his PhD degree.

Sebastian Cramer (University of Applied Science, Giessen, Germany) has joined us for eight weeks to participate in a project with CSL to reduce sulfur contaminants from protein wastes.

Professor Wedd has been appointed Series Editor of the new RSC Metallobiology Series, Royal Society of Chemistry.

November 2010

Gjoko Buncic received the award for Best Student Poster at the 39th International Conference on Coordination Chemistry in Adelaide. The poster was entitled “Water-soluble Bis(thiosemicarbazone) Ligands:Sensitive Probes and Metal Buffers for Zinc”.

Professor Wedd received the Burrows Award and delivered his plenary lecture at the conference: “How Does Biology Cope with Copper? It is Toxic but Essential”.

October 2010

Lee Xin Chong and Professor Wedd attended the Copper 10 Conference at Alghero, Italy. Lee Xin presented a poster entitled “The Copper Protection Enzyme CueO: How It Works” and Professor Wedd presented a plenary lecture entitled “Copper Tolerance and Resistance in Gram Negative Bacteria”