What's On at UWA

The ZEISS Xradia Versa family and ZEISS Xradia Ultra lab platforms offer a multi-lengthscale solution. State of the art X-ray computed tomography (CT) scanning technology combined with highly specialized, proprietary X-ray optics deliver the highest performance lab-based 3D X-ray microscopes, providing a range of imaging modes from ~30 micron resolution all the way down to 50nm spatial resolution. The Xradia Versa uses patented X-ray detectors and a microscope turret of magnifying objective detectors for easy zooming. Scan mode from 30 micron resolution all the way down to 700 nm spatial resolution. The Xradia Ultra nanoscale X-ray microscope is the only commercially available X-ray microscope that utilizes synchrotron quality X-ray optics and provides true spatial resolution down to <50nm

ZEISS Xradia 520 Versa: The flagship product of the award-winning Xradia Versa family provides the most advanced and highest performing non-destructive, 3D imaging and analysis capabilities. Xradia 520 Versa extends the boundaries of non-destructive 3D imaging with advanced contrast tuning capabilities, extensive filtering options, and enhancements delivering greater accuracy and workflow. Xradia 520 Versa frees researchers to push the boundaries of lab-based imaging. With prominent facilities worldwide using non-destructive X-ray microscopy (XRM) to extend the use of valuable samples, the ZEISS Xradia Versa family proves a powerful component of a correlative microscopy solution. Xradia 520 Versa adds a host of innovations to ZEISS Xradia's industry-leading resolution, contrast and powerful advantages for conducting in situ studies under native or controlled conditions. The instrument delivers compositional contrast for better discernment between materials appearing nearly identical, faster time-to-results for time-sensitive applications, and superior ease-of-use for multi-user environments. Xradia Versa solutions are ideal for highly skilled users as well as busy imaging labs with diverse user needs and skillsets. Breakthrough applications for Xradia 520 Versa include compositional contrast in materials science, high aspect ratio tomography for semiconductor failure analysis and 4D studies of material evolution over time. Highlights include advanced contrast tuning capabilities, extensive filtering options, and faster time to results with higher throughput.

The Speaker: Professor Jane Pillow is a clinical academic neonatologist at the University of Western Australia. She is acknowledged internationally as an expert in the area of neonatal respiratory physiology and mechanical ventilation. She has a particular research interest in high-frequency ventilation, having completed her PhD thesis in 2000 on “Optimising High-Frequency Oscillatory Ventilation in Neonates”. Since completing her PhD with Distinction at ICHR, Prof Pillow’s research interests have expanded to focus on ways to minimise lung injury at the initiation of life and include high-frequency jet ventilation, variable ventilation, bubble CPAP, patient triggered ventilation and minimising lung injury during resuscitation. She has obtained over $11 million AUD in research funding, including grants from the NHMRC and the NIH, and is CIA on an NHMRC Centre of Research Excellence. Her preclinical research uses the preterm lamb as a model of neonatal respiratory distress syndrome. She also runs a neonatal lung function laboratory, and is involved in follow-up functional studies of children born prematurely. In addition to her academic responsibilities, Prof Pillow is a Consultant Neonatologist at King Edward Memorial Hospital, where she contributes to the around the clock care of up to 100 babies, including up to 40 infants receiving mechanical ventilator support. Professor Pillow bases her academic activity at the UWA School of Anatomy, Physiology and Human Biology.

The Seminar: Preclinical basic science is challenged increasingly by funding bodies focused on translational research outcomes. Nonetheless, there is little question that the preclinical sciences are a fundamental component of new advances in health care. Animal models of disease offer valuable insights into disease mechanisms, and offer value also for preclinical screening of new and controversial treatment. Preterm infants are a highly vulnerable population, for whom long-term outcomes of clinical interventions have life-long implications. A clinically relevant postnatal animal model offers rapid evaluation of safety, efficacy and long-term outcomes of new and/or controversial therapies for preterm infants and enhances research capacity. The Preclinical Intensive Care Research Unit or PICRU, is an exciting new nationally collaborative facility for evaluation of long-term outcomes of emerging fetal and neonatal treatments. The PICRU will be based in the Large Animal Facility at UWA, operating 24 hours/day for 7 days a week during study periods. The resource intensive nature of the studies makes optimization of research outcomes an imperative. Extensive tissue sampling and opportunities for longitudinal physiological recordings offer possibilities for collaborative gain. The PICRU will be staffed by paid undergraduates, enhancing the teaching-research nexus, and offering early exposure to the research environment. Initial funded studies commencing in September 2014 will target the neurodevelopmental and cardiorespiratory outcomes of postnatal steroids and ventilation strategy in the developing preterm lamb, and how these outcomes are influenced by an antenatal inflammatory stimulus.

Six recent honours graduates (-5 from UWA-) in Agriculture and Natural Resource Management will present their research (15 min each) at the 'Young Professionals in Agriculture Forum', hosted by the Ag Institute Australia (WA Division)and DAFWA. Following the presentations, the Forum winners will be announced. For topics and student details see URL below.

This paper reports the results of a choice experiment to examine the features of marine offsets that the public finds acceptable. Offsets have become an established element of what is required if developments are to impose no net loss on the environment, once avoidance and mitigation activities have been undertaken. However, there are a number of means by which the same environmental outcome can be achieved. We explore the consequences for public acceptance of different designs of offsets relating to migratory shorebirds with respect to the proportion of direct and compensatory offsets, the geographical location at which the offset takes place, and the possibility of substituting species. Within the survey used we also develop a measure of the oil and gas industries Social License to Operate. We explore whether this measure has an impact on the probability of rejecting the development as a whole, as well as its impact on acceptability of attributes within the offset design. The paper concludes with implications for the further use of marine offsets.

Professor Michael Burton works in the area of environmental valuation, and is currently working on a project valuing marine biodiversity as part of the National Environmental Research Program Marine Biodiversity Hub.

Celebrate sustainability at UWA's premier environmental event. Pat a koala and dingo and, if you're game, hold a wedge-tailed eagle and python. View up-close UWA's bees (in a safe, sealed hive panel) and sample their honey. Create beautiful flower sculptures from upcycled materials. Learn about sustainable initiatives on campus and much more. Staff, students and their families welcome.

The Speaker: Professor Arun Dharmarajan obtained his PhD from the School of Anatomy, Physiology and Human Biology (then Department of Anatomy and Human Biology), University of Western Australia and carried out his postdoctoral position followed by faculty positions at The Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, Baltimore, USA. He spent the last 20 years in the School of Anatomy, Physiology and Human Biology and is currently professor at the School of Biomedical Sciences, Curtin University. His interests are Wnt signalling in particular a Wnt antagonist, Secreted Frizzled Related Protein-4 (sFRP4) and its role in apoptosis, cancer biology and more recently cancer stem cells.

The Seminar: Malignant tumors have a highly tumourigenic subpopulation, termed cancer stem cells (CSCs) that drive tumor formation and proliferation. CSCs, unlike the bulk of the cells within the tumour, are elusive to drug treatment. They are chemo- and radio-resistant and the central cause for tumour initiation and recurrence. These self-renewing cells are responsible for the flare-up of cancer and remission, long after treatment. The existence of CSCs has been confirmed in many tumour types including gliomas, breast, lung, prostate, head and neck, and colon cancers. Wnt/ß-catenin signalling plays a role in the proliferation of tumour cells and tumour progression and frizzled-4, a member of the Wnt signalling family, governs both stemness and invasiveness of glioma stem cells. In a recent study, we demonstrated that a naturally occurring Wnt antagonist, secreted frizzled-related protein 4 (sFRP4), chemosensitizes and inhibits glioma stem cell proliferation by reducing self-renewal and inducing differentiation. In a recent report, we examined the effect of sFRP4 in chemosensitizing the glioma cell line U138MG and glioma stem cells (GSCs) enriched from U138MG to chemotherapeutics. We found that sFRP4 alone, and in combination with either DOX or cisplatin, induced apoptosis and substantially decreased proliferation in a GSC-enriched population.

Asymptomatic infection has long been an omnipresent feature of a diversity of diseases in animals (including humans) and plants. This phenomenon has received relatively little attention amidst the contemporary cacophony focused on disease elimination and even eradication.

Malaria transmission between asymptomatic carriers poses a particularly vexing problem, and raises serious questions about the tractability of elimination targets. In the context of plant pathology, Huanglongbing (HLB), or citrus greening, a vector-transmitted bacterial infection of citrus trees has wreaked havoc on citrus crops in Asia and Latin America and is currently a major problem for the Florida and California citrus industries.

One of the most under-studied aspects of HLB is disease transmission during the several years from initiation of infection in a grove until symptoms actually become manifest. We discuss case examples of malaria transmission in the Brazilian Amazon region and asymptomatic HLB in Florida, introducing recent experimental results integrated with spatially explicit mathematical modeling to provide deeper understanding of the phenomenon of asymptomatic carriers and the mitigation strategies that they suggest.

We briefly indicate lessons from malaria and HLB that carry over to a broad range of infectious diseases in animals and plants. A vast array of open research problems is also part and parcel of our topic.

Brief Biography,

Burton Singer is Adjunct Professor in the Emerging Pathogens Institute and Department of Mathematics at University of Florida. From 1994 - July, 2009, he was Professor of Demography and Public Affairs in the Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton University. He was formerly chair of the Department of Epidemiology and Public Health and professor of economics and statistics at Yale University (1984 – 1993), and Professor of Statistics at Columbia University (1967 – 1984).

He has served as chair of the National Research Council Committee on National Statistics and as chair of the Steering Committee for Social and Economic Research in the World Health Organization Tropical Disease Research (TDR) program. He is currently on the Research Board of the Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative, focused on both short- and long-term consequences of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill.

He has centered his research in three principal areas: identification of social, biological, and environmental risks associated with vector-borne diseases in the tropics; integration of psychosocial and biological evidence to characterize pathways to alternative states of health; and health impact assessments associated with economic development projects.

His research program has included studies of: the impact of migration and urbanization on malaria transmission in the western Amazon region of Brazil and in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania; the biological correlates of well-being. and health consequences of gene- environment interactions focused on the social environment; and health impacts over time of large-scale development projects in the tropics, with particular emphasis on forcibly resettled communities.

He was elected to the National Academy of Sciences (1994), the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies (2005) and was a Guggenheim fellow in 1981-1982. Ph.D. He received his PhD in Statistics from Stanford University in 1967.

Apologies for the short notice change.

PS* This seminar is free and open to the public & no RSVP required.

****All Welcome****

There will be presentations by international visitors, games, prizes, a photo booth, treats on offer and lots and lots of information about exchange and study abroad opportunities for UWA students.

The Speaker: Oron Catts is an artist, researcher and curator whose pioneering work with the Tissue Culture and Art Project which he established in 1996 is considered a leading biological art project. In 2000 he co-founded SymbioticA, an artistic research centre housed within the School of Anatomy, Physiology and Human Biology, The University of Western Australia. Under Catts’ leadership SymbioticA has gone on to win the Prix Ars Electronica Golden Nica in Hybrid Art (2007) the WA Premier Science Award (2008) and became a Centre for Excellence in 2008. In 2009 Catts was recognized by Thames & Hudson’s “60 Innovators Shaping our Creative Future” book in the category “Beyond Design”, and by Icon Magazine (UK) as one of the top 20 Designers, “making the future and transforming the way we work”. His work has been widely exhibited internationally in venues such as NY MoMA, Mori Art Museum, Tokyo and National Art Museum of China. Catts was a Research Fellow in Harvard Medical School, a visiting Scholar at the Department of Art and Art History, Stanford University, a Visiting Professor of Design Interaction, Royal College of Arts, London, and a Visiting Professor at the School of Art, Design and Architecture, Aalto University, Helsinki where he was commissioned to set up Biofilia - Base for Biological Art and Design. Catts’ ideas and projects reach beyond the confines of art; his work is often cited as inspiration to diverse areas such as new materials, textiles, design, architecture, ethics, fiction, and food.

The Seminar: In the last three years I have been researching the unintentionality of human impact on environmental systems through a series of research trips to the far north of Lapland, and recently Western Australia. I have been exploring Metagenomics as a story telling tool; using environmental DNA sequencing of sites where human impacted the environment in unpredictable ways. In this talk I will combine these stories with my other research interest of regenerative biology for non-medical ends, such as consumer products, art and design. I will outline these developments in areas such as in vitro meat and leather, actuators and bio machine interfaces, speculative design and contemporary artistic practices. I will draw on my experience of using tissue engineering for non-medical ends to speculate about what lead to these applications and their possible future developments. Avoiding utopian and dystopian postures and using the notion of the contestable, I will highlight some philosophical and ethical consideration stemming from the notion of the unintentional consequences of human urge to understand and manipulate.

Come along to Profectus UWA's Inaugral 2014 AGM on Tuesday April 8. If you are passionate about business and entrepreneurship be sure to drop by at 1pm to learn more about our agenda. We will answer any questions you have about Profectus and events being held this semester!!!

Knowledge about the morphology and chemical composition of heterogeneous materials on a sub-micrometer scale is crucial for the development of new material properties for highly specified applications. However, each analytical measuring technique has limitations, which may be overcome by their combination. Confocal microscopy has been used to reconstruct three-dimensional images of micro-objects by using a spatial pinhole to eliminate out-of focus light in specimens thicker than the focal plane. Raman spectroscopy on the other hand is able to determine the chemical compositions of materials. The confocal Raman microscope combines Raman spectroscopy with high resolution confocal microscopy. The discrimination of out of focus information used in confocal microscopy is particularly beneficial for confocal Raman imaging since it reduces the volume from which the Raman spectrum is collected. Due to the confocal principle, depth information from transparent materials can be easily obtained, leading to full three dimensional chemical reconstructions of the material’s composition. The combination of confocal Raman microscopy with SPM and true surface microscopy permits characterization of materials at submicron resolution, as well as on mm-rough surfaces across large areas. Examples from various fields of applications will be presented.

One of the universal features of human sociality is the fact that our social networks are highly integrated: human societies exhibit several nested social layers including families, bands and communities. Several factors have been identified as creating disincentives for hostile intergroup relations, including economic interdependence, intermarriage and cooperative defence against external adversaries. I will explore the emergence of amicable relations between human communities and identify precursors in non-human primate societies.

Cyril Grueter completed his PhD degree in biological anthropology in 2009 at the University of Zurich/Switzerland, which was supervised by Prof. Carel van Schaik. Grueter research was aimed at understanding the evolutionary determinants of multilevel societies in primates and included 20 months of observations on wild snub-nosed monkeys in China, complemented with comparative cross-species analyses. Subsequently he worked as a postdoctoral researcher at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig/Germany and conducted a field study on the feeding ecology and feeding competition in mountain gorillas in Rwanda between 2009 and 2010 in collaboration with the Karisoke Research Center. In 2012, Grueter took up an Assistant Professor position at the School of Anatomy, Physiology and Human Biology at The University of Western Australia.

The Centre for Cell Therapy and Regenerative Medicine is holding its Annual Research Symposium on Tuesday 15 April 2014 at the Harry Perkins Institute of Medical Research from 8.45 am – 4.30 pm. The theme for the meeting is “At the cutting edge: New Developments in Regenerative Medicine” Professor Ed Stanley from Murdoch Childrens Research Institute, The Royal Children's Hospital, Melbourne will deliver the keynote presentation entitled: "Pluripotent stem cell models of human development and disease.” For a copy of the programme and to RSVP please contact Barbara Telfer at [email protected] Please RSVP by 5pm on Tuesday the 1 April 2014.

Freshwater fishes are typically conceived as existing in genetically structured subpopulations, where gene flow is low and (effective) population sizes are small. This owes to the patchy nature of freshwater habitat, the dendritic structure of rivers, and the presence of in-stream barriers (e.g., waterfalls). However, in many freshwater systems on the Australian continent, the opposite is observed. In this seminar I will discuss my personal experiences exploring the genetic structure of freshwater fish in the arid-zone systems of central and northern Australia, and discuss the implications for conservation and management of freshwater ecosystems. I will finish with a discussion around the project I am currently undertaking at the Western Australian Museum, where we are using sequence data and the taxonomic expertise of the museum to investigate terrestrial and marine biodiversity in the Pilbara.

Science and Faith seem to be arguing a lot lately, so is their long term marriage over? The accusations are not pretty, not even true. Can we afford for them to split? Taking a leaf out of "Life of Brian", this talk will present the key players and principles of faith which pioneered modern science up to today. WXED is a series of data-rich multimedia presentations on the theme "What's Christianity(WX) Ever Done(ED) for Us?"

Scientists have wondered for some time whether plants, like animals, can truly learn from the past and adjust their future behavior appropriately. We adopted the same approach used in studies of animal learning and memory and put the sensitive plant Mimosa to the test.

We found that plants too can learn, and rapidly, when circumstances demand it, but most importantly they remember what has been learnt for several weeks (at the very least). These findings demonstrate that memory is not property special to organisms with a nervous system, inviting us to re-examine the fundamental mechanisms shaping behavior across living systems.

PS* This seminar is free and open to the public & no RSVP required.

****All Welcome****

The Art of Zhen Shan Ren (Truthfulness, Compassion, Forbearance) takes viewers through the story of Falun Dafa - from its introduction to the public in 1992, through the beauty and enlightenment of the practice, to the unjust and unrelenting persecution, moving forward through the peaceful resistance of Falun Dafa practitioners worldwide who seek to bring an end to the persecution, then through themes of karmic retribution, salvation and grace, and finishing with a moment of choice.

Storytelling has long been one of fine art's greatest joys, and this Exhibition's ability to cross cultural, lingual and ethnic barriers is highlighted each time it is shown.

Inspired by tradition and divinity, the artists paint - often collaboratively - stories either experienced by themselves or shared by fellow Falun Dafa practitioners worldwide. Realist oil painting, or Neo-Renaissance, was chosen as the style for its narrative capabilities, accessibility and, above all, its purity.

The Exhibition aims to educate and draw focus to an unjust persecution - to record a moment in time when the universal principles of Truth, Compassion, Forbearance are openly opposed. It also highlights the danger of becoming involved in the persecution through state-run ventures such as forced labour and forced organ harvesting of Falun Dafa practitioners. Outlasting these sombre themes, however, is a steady message of hope and fulfilment, as the enduring courage and belief of practitioners bring positive change in numerous dark settings.

A central hope of founding artist Professor Zhang's mission is to promote, through fine art, the understanding that freedom of belief is a fundamental human right, and to raise awareness.

The Speaker: Peter Mark completed a PhD in the Department of Pharmacology at The University of Western Australia in breast cancer research. He investigated the component structure of the estrogen receptor complex in the absence of hormone and determined how this altered the receptor’s response to estrogen. He is currently an Assistant Professor in the School of Anatomy, Physiology & Human Biology at UWA, where he is actively involved in teaching and research in reproductive biology. He is particularly interested in placental factors that act as drivers of fetal growth and development.

The Seminar: Insults during pregnancy, including maternal under/overnutrition, excess fetal glucocorticoid exposure and altered circadian rhythms can result in small for gestational age babies through placental dysfunction. These insults drive physiological and anatomical adaptations in the placenta and fetus, to allow for immediate survival, but predispose the offspring to adult-onset diseases such as hypertension, diabetes and obesity. Our recent research has focussed on circadian rhythms in placental function and how these may impact on nutrient transfer to the developing fetus. Disturbances in maternal circadian rhythms can alter fetal growth trajectories and program offspring for adverse health outcomes, but whether disruption of placental rhythms contributes to these effects is unknown. The presentation will provide evidence for placental circadian rhythms and discuss potential circadian treatments to improve neonatal outcomes for premature babies.

Many animals possess a magnetic sense, which they use as a type of biological GPS to navigate short or long distances. Despite a wealth of behavioural evidence for magnetoreception, the cellular mechanisms that must underlie such a sense await discovery. Dr Jeremy Shaw focuses on the use of cutting-edge optical, electron and X-ray microscopy techniques to explore the magnetoreception question and has contributed to new discoveries in this field with publications in the journals Nature and Current Biology. Dr Shaw’s research is now centred on the use of the honeybee Apis mellifera as a model system to search for this new sensory system and hopefully solve what is one of the great unsolved mysteries in biology.

This book was funded by a University Centenary Grant with detailed vignettes of 71 places named after personalities on the Crawley Campus. An initiative of the UWA Historical Society, it includes a fold-out map showing each location. Join the authors and their many supporters for the launch.