In the 1950s it seemed as if medical science was winning the fight against malaria with the help of the ‘wonder drug’ chloroquine. Over the past half century the drug has saved hundreds of millions of lives.

But now the parasite that causes malaria has fought back. Chloroquine-resistant malaria has become common in developing countries. Rowena Martin is working to understand what happened, and to develop new ways of treating malaria.

In a series of discoveries, Rowena and her colleagues at the Australian National University (ANU) have revealed some of the biochemical tricks the malaria parasite uses. Now she is honing ways that chloroquine-based drugs can be altered to give them a new lease of life.

Rowena’s achievements have won her a $20,000 L’Oréal Australia For Women in Science Fellowship which she will use to study the complex biochemistry that gives rise to resistance.

At secondary school Rowena had broad interests ranging from science to architecture. But during her undergraduate degree at university she was given several opportunities to work in research labs – and she was hooked. “I really love the problem solving, lateral thinking, and creativity involved in scientific research. And the excitement when you make the big discovery in the small hours of the morning. It’s a great feeling.”

It wasn’t until working on her Honours project that she learned that the ancient scourge of malaria was on the march again. This year it will infect about 300 million people and kill about a million of them.

But that’s just one part of the problem, according to Rowena. “Malaria places an immense economic burden on a country. It isn’t just associated with poverty, it is a cause of poverty,” she says.

“The parasite’s ability to develop resistance to drugs appears to be inexhaustible, so we constantly need to look for novel compounds and new ways to use the existing ones.”

The parasite enters our bodies when we’re bitten by an infected mosquito. It eventually invades and plunders our red blood cells, consuming the haemoglobin contained within. The digestion of haemoglobin, which takes place in the parasite’s stomach compartment, releases the iron-containing, non-protein component, haem. Free haem is toxic to the parasite, which responds by converting it to a harmless crystal. Chloroquine works by blocking the formation of these crystals, and the parasite is poisoned by the haem it has released.

Ten years ago researchers discovered that just a few small changes in one protein, PfCRT, were enough to give the parasite resistance to chloroquine. But they didn’t know what the changes did. That’s been the focus of Rowena’s contribution.

First, she developed a system to study PfCRT in frog eggs – allowing her to examine it in isolation and in detail. That led to a critical discovery. “We found how the protein acts in the drug-resistant parasite. It moves chloroquine out of the parasite’s stomach compartment so that the drug can’t accumulate at its site of action.”

That research was published in the journal Science in 2009. Now Rowena is working to refine the details of the process, and to understand what the role of this protein is in normal parasites.

“The L’Oréal Fellowship is a great honour. The money will help me develop my career as an independent researcher and build my research team. We will be using new tools such as metabolomics to investigate the normal function of the PfCRT protein and how to inhibit it.”

Qualifications

2005 – PhD (Biochemistry, cell physiology, molecular biology, and bioinformatics), TheAustralian National University (ANU)

1997 – Bachelor of Science with Honours (Biochemistry and cell physiology), ANU

Career highlights, awards, fellowships, grants

2010 – Australian Museum Eureka Prize Finalist for Early Career Research

2009-2012 – National Health and Medical Research Council Australian Biomedical Fellowship

2008-present – Principal investigator, Research School of Biology, ANU and the School of Botany, University of Melbourne

2008-2010 – National Health and Medical Research Council project grant: Characterization of the chloroquine resistance transporter of the malaria parasite

2007 - ASP & Australian Research Council/National Health and Medical Research Council Parasitology Network Early Career Researcher Award

2005 – Australian Research Council Research Associate, School of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, ANU

2001 – Australian Society of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology ComBio Student Poster Prize

1998 – Australian Postgraduate Award

1996 – Research assistant, CSIRO Division of Forestry and Forestry Products, Canberra

1996 – Maternal Health Research Scholarship

1995 – Research assistant, New South Wales Agricultural Research and Veterinary Centre, Orange

1995 – National Heart Foundation Vacation Scholarship

1994 – Research Assistant, CSIRO Division of Plant Industry, Canberra

Research highlights

• More than ten presentations at Australian and international conferences and institutions including three invited conference and seminar presentations
• Thirteen publications including six first-author journal articles, three reviews and two book chapters
• A first-author paper in Science and a co-first-author paper in Nature
• Actively involved in editorial and peer review for a variety of journals and grants
• Currently supervising several PhD and Honours students

We need better ways of capturing carbon dioxide emissions from power stations and industry. And we won’t be using hydrogen cars until we’ve developed practical ways of carrying enough hydrogen gas in the fuel tank. Deanna D’Alessandro’s understanding of basic chemistry has led her to create new, incredibly absorbent chemicals that could do both these jobs and much more.

It’s all to do with surface area. Working in California and in Sydney she has constructed crystals that are full of minute holes. One teaspoon of the most effective of her chemicals has the surface area of a rugby field. What’s more, the size and shape of the pores can be customised using light. So she believes she can create molecular sponges that will mop up carbon dioxide, hydrogen, or in theory almost any gas – and then release it on cue.

A postdoctoral research fellow in the School of Chemistry at The University of Sydney, Deanna has always had a passion for chemistry. “At school I realised that chemistry explains everything – what colours the world, who we are, how we got here.” In return, chemistry has rewarded her passion – taking her around the world from her home town of Cairns. “I’ve presented my work in the US, UK, China and Europe. I love that aspect of science – it’s a global activity, a global community.”

Deanna’s compounds are similar in principle to the molecular structures in seashells and in microscopic marine plants called diatoms. These naturally-occurring materials are commonly used in toothpaste, laundry detergents, kitty litter and industry generally.

Deanna’s high tech equivalents are crystals known as metal-organic frameworks – clusters of charged metal atoms linked by carbon-based groups. While she didn’t invent these frameworks, Deanna has developed new kinds which are more robust and which have molecular pores that can be shaped using light.

Many crystals have been made that can absorb carbon dioxide, but few can survive the hot, wet environment of a power station flue. The best carbon capture technology currently in use is based around toxic chemicals and uses about 40% of the energy generated by the power station.

During her time as a postdoctoral fellow at the University of California, Berkeley, Deanna created frameworks that could survive the tough environmental conditions and still capture carbon dioxide. They’re not ready for commercial use yet – but they are a step closer to cost-effective carbon capture.

Deanna will use her L’Oréal Australia For Women in Science Fellowship to help her take her crystals to the next level. She hopes to create more advanced molecular frameworks, the pores of which can be modified by different wavelengths of light. So, the crystals could be activated to absorb carbon dioxide with red light, for example, and to release it with light of another colour.

Her metal-organic frameworks could also have many other applications, such as hydrogen storage; gas separation; electrodes for sensors, and capacitors for electronic circuits.

In late 2009, Deanna returned to Australia to develop her own career as an independent researcher. “I’m building a research team here in Australia that will help me turn my ideas into reality and contribute to a sustainable future.”

Qualifications

2006 - PhD (Chemistry), James Cook University

2001 – Bachelor of Science with Honours (Chemistry), James Cook University

Career highlights, awards, fellowships, grants

2010-present – University of Sydney Postdoctoral Research Fellow, School of Chemistry, University of Sydney

2010 – James Cook University Outstanding Early Career Alumni Award

2008 – Sustainable Products and Solutions Program Grant, “CO2 capture in alkylamine-appended metal-organic frameworks”, awarded to D. M. D’Alessandro and J. R. Long

2007-2009 – Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Department of Chemistry, University of California, Berkeley, USA

2007-2009 – Royal Commission for the Exhibition of 1851 Research Fellowship. One of six awarded across Commonwealth countries

2007-2008 – Dow Chemical Company Foundation Fellowship of the American Australian Association

2007 – International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) Prize for Young Chemists for the most outstanding PhD theses in the chemical sciences (one of five awarded worldwide)

2007 – Fresh Science/British Council Australia study tour of the UK

2006-2007 – Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Molecular Electronics Group, University of Sydney

2006 – Royal Australian Chemical Institute (RACI) Cornforth Medal for the most outstanding PhD thesis submitted in a branch of chemistry in Australia

2003 – James Cook University Doctoral Research Scheme Grant to undertake research in the Centre for Nanotechnology, Northwestern University, USA

2001 – Australian Postgraduate Award

2000 – University Medal, James Cook University

Research highlights

• More than 25 presentations at Australian and international conferences and institutions, including eight invited conference and seminar presentations
• Twenty five publications including 16 first-author journal articles and four reviews (all as first author); and a further three articles for mainstream science publication
• Active role in undergraduate teaching at The University of Sydney as well as supervision of Honours students

For further detail on the L’OREAL Australia For Women in Science Fellowships, please visit http://www.scienceinpublic.com/blog/category/loreal

Most women in Australia who have breast cancer recover.  But many then relapse years later.

Marie-Liesse Asselin-Labat wants to know why.  If she can solve this mystery, her work will open up opportunities for new drugs and treatments. Her achievements to date suggest that she is well placed to succeed.

In 2006 she was part of the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research team that received global attention for its discovery of breast stem cells – a significant step in understanding how breast cancer starts. Marie-Liesse built on this finding with a series of papers exploring how these cells develop and are influenced by oestrogen and other steroids.

Marie-Liesse’s achievements have won her a $20,000 L’Oréal Australia For Women in Science Fellowship which she will use to develop her career as an independent researcher and to assist in the care of her two young boys.

Raised on the west coast of France, Marie-Liesse was always interested in biology. That interest took her to a pharmacy degree at the University of Nantes.  “I realised in the course of my degree how important medical research is in creating new drugs,” she says. So she turned to research and to a PhD in molecular and cellular biology at the University Paris XI. That brought her to Australia where she was entranced by the work of the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute on breast cancer.

She joined Jane Visvader and Geoff Lindeman’s team at the Institute in 2004 and contributed to the key discovery,  published in Nature in 2006 as Generation of a functional mammary gland from a single stem cell.

Breast stem cells are critical to normal breast development, but if the breast becomes cancerous they are also likely to be at heart of the problem. And that’s been the focus of Marie-Liesse’s work. In a series of high impact papers working with mice, she has  explored how these breast stem cells develop into the wide range of cells found in a normal breast and how some cells are more likely to become aggressive cancer cells.

In March this year she was lead author of a Nature paper revealing that oestrogen and other steroids can control the function of breast stem cells.

“It’s via an indirect mechanism important in understanding how stem cells proliferate, and it could lead to new treatments and new drugs,” she says.

March was a big month for her, as she also gave birth to her second child.

Many women recover from their original cancer but then, sometimes years later, the disease starts again, but more aggressively with the cancer cells rapidly spreading from the breast and throughout the body.

“I will use the L’Oréal Fellowship to find out why breast cancer often returns. I want to understand how the cells metastasise. How do they migrate from the breast?”

“The Fellowship is a great honour and will help me maintain my life-work balance with my two boys. It will help me employ a laboratory assistant to maintain the team’s productivity. The Fellowship will also assist with childcare, and support my participation in leadership training.”

“There are basic questions we still need to answer about breast cancer,” she says. “What is the cell of origin? What causes a cell to go wrong and turn to cancer?”

“I hope that within a decade my work will have changed the outcomes for breast cancer patients, and that it will help us to understand and improve the outcomes for other kinds of cancer.”

Qualifications

2004 – PhD (Molecular and Cellular Biology), University Paris XI, France

2001 - Doctor in Pharmacy, School of Pharmacy, University of Nantes, France

2000 - Master in Clinical and Experimental Pharmacology, University Paris XI, France

Career highlights, awards, fellowships, grants

2010-2015 – Queen Elizabeth II Australian Research Council Fellowship

2009-2011 – Cancer Australia/National Breast Cancer Foundation grant: Role of the GATA-3 transcription factor as a tumour suppressor and potential therapeutic target in breast cancer, co-investigator on grant awarded to by Jane Visvader, Geoff Lindeman, Stephen Fox and Marie-Liesse Asselin-Labat

2008-present – Senior Research Officer, The Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research, Victorian Breast Cancer Research Consortium, Melbourne, Australia

2008-2009 – Australian Research Council post-doctoral fellowship

2007-2008 – Australian Research Council post-doctoral Fellowship

2007-2009 – Cancer Council Victoria venture grant: Developing lead compounds to target breast cancer by specific inhibition of the LMO4 oncogene, co-investigator on grant awarded to Jane Visvader, Geoff Lindeman, Marie-Liesse Asselin-Labat, Keith Watson and Ian Street

2007-2009 – National Health and Medical Research Council Program grant: Roles of impaired apoptosis and differentiation in tumourigenesis and therapy, co-associate investigator on grant awarded to Jerry Adams

2007 - Lorne Cancer Conference Poster Prize

2007 - International Society for Stem Cell Research Annual Meeting travel grant

2006 - Institut national de la santé et de la recherche médicale/National Health and Medical Research Council postdoctoral fellowship (exchange program)

2005 - Fondation pour la Recherche Medicale post-doctoral fellowship

2004-2008 – Research officer, The Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research, Victorian Breast Cancer Research Consortium, Melbourne, Australia

2000 – Research Assistant, Laboratoires UPSA, Paris

Research highlights

• Seven  presentations at Australian and international conferences and institutions, including two invited conference presentations
• Twenty publications, including seven first-author journal articles, three reviews and one book chapter
• Actively involved in editorial and peer review for a variety of journals and grants