This article recaps the Young Scientist Research Prizes competition, which was held at The Royal Society of Victoria on 24th October, 2024 and livestreamed via YouTube.

Every year, final year PhD candidates present their doctoral studies to the Royal Society of Victoria, competing for four Prizes that recognise excellence in Victoria’s early career scientists. Eight finalists present under the four categories: Biological Sciences, Biomedical & Health Sciences, Earth Sciences, and Physical Sciences.

Warmest congratulations to all our finalists, with particular acknowledgement of Leesa Lertsumitkul, Darcy Watchorn, Calla Gould-Whaley and Bennet Sam Thomas, the first prize winners of their respective categories. The rationale and significance for each presentation is provided below; video presentations from all finalists will be released in the coming weeks.

We also extend our grateful thanks to our Supporting Partner, Geoscience Australia, and Physical Sciences Category Sponsor, the Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Agency (ARPANSA) for their generous support of this year’s competition.

This year our finalists received insights from Dr Ivan Williams, ARPANSA’s Chief Medical Radiation Scientist, on the remarkable scope of ARPANSA’s scientific work and the opportunities for scientists across the disciplines to secure purposeful postdoctoral work with the Agency. For more information, please refer to https://www.arpansa.gov.au/about-us/careers.

Biological Sciences

First Prize: Darcy Watchorn, Deakin University

Advancing Mammal Conservation in the Face of Fire and Invasive Predators

Lead Supervisor: Professor Don Driscoll, School of Life and Environmental Science, Deakin University

Each year, invasive cats and foxes kill an estimated 1.4 billion native mammals in Australia, continuing their impact as major drivers of Australia’s mammalian extinction crisis. There is recent evidence from tropical northern Australia that prescribed fire regimes attract feral cats and exacerbates their impacts by removing the understorey habitat where native prey species usually shelter to avoid detection. The sheer scale of these feral predator numbers in Australia means that lethal control measures are difficult to implement economically in a way that protects the ecological integrity of native habitats, so Darcy Watchorn and his colleagues have sought a complementary, non-lethal approach by temporarily replacing the functions of lost understoreys in forests disrupted by fire.

Darcy set out to confirm if recently disturbed landscapes did indeed facilitate a higher rate of predation by foxes and cats, and if the installation of artificial refuges offered prey species some relief to support conservation. Working in three contrasting ecoregions – the Otway Ranges in Victoria, Kangaroo Island in South Australia, and the Simpson Desert in Queensland – Darcy and his colleagues monitored the behaviour of both predator and prey species, installed artificial refuges and tested if these measures affected small mammal abundance and richness after prescribed fire.

Darcy found that prescribed fire regimes have a short term negative impact on medium-sizes native mammals, highlighting the value of retaining unburnt patches as refugia. He found that the response of cats and foxes to fire is not generalisable; the ecology of any particular site is unique and very complex, offering too many influencing factors at play to determine a standard approach to feral predator management in the landscape. The installation of artificial refuges was labour intensive and, while used extensively by the target animals in forest biomes, overall did not prove an effective means of improving the persistence of small mammal populations post-fire. They may, however, serve as an effective conservation tool for small ground-dwelling birds, reptiles and other mammals across diverse ecosystems, although further research will be needed to test their effect at the population level.

Second Prize: Eliza Thompson, The University of Melbourne

Promoting Bird Diversity in Plantation Forests of Western Victoria

Lead Supervisor: Associate Professor Luke Kelly, School of Agriculture, Food and Ecosystem Sciences, The University of Melbourne

With most of Victoria’s timber and forest product resources now being derived from plantation estates, consideration must turn to how these transient forests can be supported by – and, in turn, support – regional ecology. Ecosystem services from browsing animals can address industry needs, such as pest control, to enhance the health of growing trees. The inclusion of mixed habitats within plantations can support local bird diversity, particularly where these complement biodiversity corridors in adjoining nature reserves and river systems. Eliza Thompson’s research sought to understand how species respond to the extent and configuration of these landscape elements, including remnant vegetation from pre-existing native forests, and the extent to which bird diversity within South-West Victoria’s Tasmanian blue gum plantations can moderate insect pest outbreaks.

Working across 36 study landscapes with remnant vegetation ranging in coverage from 0 to 72%, Eliza conducted a spatial and statistical analysis of bird activities on site and how these correlated with the extent of remnant coverage. This data was then combined with Agriculture Victoria’s data collection on regional insect pest outbreaks of the autumn gum moth (Mnesampela privata).

Patterns emerged for species richness, with 90% of observed birds being found in landscapes retaining more than 13% of remnant vegetation, and 90% of hollow-nesting species being found in landscapes with more than 19% of remnant vegetation. Increases in bird species richness correlated with decreases in pest occurrence, particularly in close proximity to the remnant vegetation stands. Eliza’s findings are valuable in informing the design of regional plantation forests to support bird diversity, reduce pesticide usage and develop a more wildlife-friendly production environment during an era of alarming global biodiversity loss.

Biomedical and Health Sciences

First Prize: Leesa Lertsumitkul, The University of Melbourne

Designing Targeted Cellular Therapies to Cure Brain Cancer in Preclinical Models

Lead Supervisor: Professor Misty Jenkins, Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research and Department of Biochemistry and Chemistry, The University of Melbourne, and the La Trobe Institute of Molecular Science, La Trobe University

High grade gliomas including glioblastoma (GBM) and diffuse midline gliomas (DMG) are the most fatal and aggressive forms of brain cancer. They remain incurable and have seen no improvement in treatment options for the past 30 years. The current standard of care using surgery, chemotherapy and radiation are blunt instruments that cause severe side effects and are ultimately failing patients. 

Working with research teams at the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research, Leesa Lertsumitkil and her colleagues have been using Chimeric Antigen Receptor (CAR) T cells – the body’s ‘hunter’ immune cells, repurposed and ‘trained’ to recognise and attack cancer cells – as a promising approach to treat brain cancer, due to their ability to cross the blood brain barrier. A major challenge for translating this therapy into the clinic is the limited number of antigens that are currently under investigation. 

Leesa and her team have taken the opportunity provided by access to rare primary patient samples of high grade gliomas to better understand how to train CAR T cells for anti-tumour targeting. They  mapped the surface proteome (the complete set of proteins on the surface of a cancer cell) and identified a specific receptor (a protein on the surface of the cell that binds with free roaming molecules, like those in a particular drug therapy, to send messages to the cell to either start or stop a particular process) called Ephrin type-A receptor 3 (EphA3) that is highly present in the high-grade gliomas of GBM patients.

By engineering EphA3-targeting CAR T cells, the team demonstrated a robust, antigen-specific killing of human GBM and DMG cell lines in vitro. In the mouse models, the CAR T cells completely eliminated the tumour within 4 weeks of treatment, with the cells still circulating 9 weeks later to ensure full tumour clearance. The further implant of a second tumour in these mice resulted in full clearance by the same CAR T cells still resident in the body, with all mice remaining tumour-free up to 6 months post treatment, evidencing a ‘memory population’ of CAR T cells to fight against secondary tumour challenges. These findings underscore the high potential for transitioning this innovative therapy into clinical trials, aiming to revolutionise the treatment landscape for patients afflicted with these formidable brain cancers.

Second Prize: Dimuthu Harshana Ysakeerthi Angage, La Trobe University

Discovery of Broad-Spectrum Single Antibody Therapy Against Malaria, Toxoplasmosis, and Babesiosis

Lead Supervisor: Professor Michael Foley, Department of Biochemistry and Chemistry, La Trobe University

We don’t hear much about these diseases outside of veterinary care in Australia, but the parasitic infections malaria, toxoplasmosis and babesiosis are significant global health threats. Dimuthu Angage and his colleagues have responded to the increasing resistance of malaria to existing drug treatments, and the lack of treatments targeting toxoplasmosis and babesiosis, by searching for novel therapies made possible by recently developed immunological tools.

These parasites are single-celled organisms that can be targeted through mapping and understanding the receptor functions on their surfaces—much like immune therapies identify and act on specific cellular markers in cancers and viral infections. Happily, all three parasite species share a common protein, named AMA1, that offers a promising target for drug development. Less happily, the protein expresses itself in a highly variable way to obscure itself from the host body’s immune system and, by extension, drug therapies.

To overcome this defence, Dimuthu and his colleagues used an immunological tool called an i-body, developed through a partnership between La Trobe University and the biotechnology company AdAlta, that arranges human proteins into a compact, looped shape similar to shark antibodies. This design allows i-bodies to reach grooves and cavities on cell surfaces that typical (monoclonal) antibodies cannot access—acting like an immunological ‘skeleton key.’ Charged with targeting AMA1 in its protected places, one of the i-body candidates – named WD34 – was found to transiently inhibit parasite growth in all three species, both in cultures and mouse models. The success of this method holds enormous potential for further development of therapies for pathogens generally, including viruses with pandemic potential.

Earth Sciences

First Prize: Calla Gould-Whaley, The University of Melbourne

Extreme southward displacement of the Australian monsoon during the abrupt climate events of the Last Glacial Period

Lead Supervisor: Professor Russell Drysdale, School of Geography, Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, The University of Melbourne

On the current trajectory set by humanity for the planet’s climate, abrupt and dramatic changes are anticipated and increasingly observed. Calla Gould-Whaley works to understand how past abrupt climate events affected the Australian continent in our (geologically) recent past to better prepare for the adaptation measures required in our future.

Calla and her colleagues set out to establish the behaviour of Australia’s climate during the Last Glacial Period (LGP, the most recent ‘ice age’ ending about 11,500 years ago) by interrogating geochemical signatures in sedimentary deposits known as speleothems, a family of calcium-based cave formations that includes stalactites and stalagmites, that can provide paleoclimate records similar to those from ice cores or tree rings. She drew her samples from a cave in the Ikara-Flinders Ranges of South Australia, a region that has been historically difficult to draw data from, as proxies for past climate events are largely restricted to the coastal fringes of the continent.

The team found the speleothems at the study site were deposited during periods of enhanced groundwater recharge, when the local water table rose and flooded the cave, a vanishingly rare contemporary event. During the LGP, episodes of cave flooding were sustained for thousands of years and align with intervals of Southern Hemisphere summer insolation intensity, suggesting that southern Australia recieved tropical moisture due to intensification and southward displacement of the Australian Monsoon. Their findings suggest this displacement was also a response to a reduced Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation, the main circulating current in the Atlantic Ocean, which is predicted to occur once again as anthropogenic climate change intensifies disruption from Arctic ice melt.

Second Prize: Vinícius Werneck Salazar, The University of Melbourne

Metagenomic and oceanographic data integration reveals restructuring of global picoplankton biogeography under climate change

Lead Supervisor: Professor Kim-Anh Lê Cao, Melbourne Integrative Genomics, The University of Melbourne

Marine ecosystems provide an essential service to our planetary system, moderating our climate and food chains through their contribution to the globe’s key geochemical cycles, such as carbon sequestration and nutrient cycling. The process starts at the microbial level, and Vinícius Werneck Salazar chose picoplankton, the smallest of planktonic organisms in the world, as the focus of a global study on the impacts of climate change on the planet’s oceans.

Vinícius and his colleagues drew on a global dataset of over two thousand picoplankton “metagenomes,” bulk samples of organisms collected through an international collaborative effort to provide researchers with entire nucleotide sequences, representing specific communities of microorganisms across our major oceanic regions. They obtained a genetic profile of the various species present and their functions, then compared the structural state of these microbial communities to the state of their immediate environment, taking into account factors such as temperature, salinity and nutrient concentrations.

Vinícius and the team observed a general poleward expansion of picoplankton territories, consistent with data from larger organisms, with the most significant shifts concentrated in the ocean’s warming polar and temperate coastal regions. The study deepens our understanding of how climate change is altering picoplankton biogeography, contributing to more accurate models for biogeochemical cycles to inform marine conservation efforts and mitigate microbial impacts on coastal ecosystems around the world.

Physical Sciences

First Prize: Bennet Sam Thomas, Monash University

Extraction and Separation of Rare Earth Elements from Victorian Brown Coal Fly Ash

Lead Supervisor: Professor Sankar Bhattacharya, Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering, Monash University

Bennet’s thesis focused on the accumulated legacy waste from humanity’s love affair with coal, seeking methods to extract 16 commercially significant rare earth elements (REEs) from brown coal fly ash. These critical metals are considered essential to the transition to a zero-carbon future, and Bennet’s research has identified a valuable process for converting an abundant, low-cost waste product into a valuable resource.

In Victoria alone, nearly 1.3 million tons of brown coal fly ash has been generated and accumulated on an annual basis since the late 19th century, stored in ‘ash dams’ or ponds, now filled with heavy metals and other contaminants that slowly leach into the water table.

Bennet and his colleagues conducted leaching experiments on ash dams that have collected Victorian brown coal fly ash from the Loy Yang, Morwell and Yallourn power stations, concluding the viability of using organic acids to extract REEs. Citric acid showed the best performance, optimised using response surface methodology, which proved a robust technique for hydrometallurgical extraction studies. The study underpins and signifies the importance of upholding green chemistry principles in engineering practices by utilising non-toxic and environmentally benign reagents in hydrometallurgy.

Second Prize: Suraj Loomba, RMIT University

Synthesis of Scalable Two-Dimensional Materials for Industrial-Scale Electrochemical Seawater Splitting

Lead Supervisor: Dr Nasir Mahmood, School of Science, RMIT University

Current electrolyzer technologies use limited freshwater resources for electrolysis in the production of green hydrogen, as various ionic salts, particulates and microbes in sea water can interfere with the electrochemical water splitting. But this means 20 billion m3 of freshwater supplies will be required to meet the world’s future energy demands, placing up to 80% of the world’s human population at risk of water scarcity. Green hydrogen generation via seawater electrolysis can be a sustainable approach, given the vast resources available; so Suraj Loomba has been developing new, efficient, stable catalysts for splitting seawater into hydrogen and oxygen.

Suraj and colleagues used a hydrothermal method to prepare the transition metal oxide N-NiMoO3, which was further treated to create porous, ultrathin sheets to be used as a catalyst for the hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) in seawater. He also synthesised 2D sheets of WO3.B2O3 with an ionic bonded Co-MOF heterostructure as a catalyst for an oxygen evolution reaction (OER) in seawater. These two new catalysts replaced the processes currently limited to freshwater use, these being Pt/C and IrO2 respectively.

The team found that the HER reaction performed twice as well as the freshwater Pt/C catalyst and 10 times better than the IrO2 when utilised as an anode to deliver current to the electrolysis process. The OER reaction also performed ten times better than IrO2. Importantly, the catalysts inhibited chlorine generation and corrosive chlorine chemistry, making them suitable for operation in alkaline seawater, capable of operating efficiently in a stable condition for months. At scale, the developed catalysts are reckoned to be around 50 to 60 times more economical than the current catalysts in commercial use.

Assessment and Judging

Finally, enormous thanks to our assessors & judges for variously wading through the applications and making some very painful decisions on the big night! Acknowledging the efforts of Professor Euan Ritchie, Dr Ivan Williams, Dr Christopher Draper-Joyce, Ms Cristina Bitzilis, Dr Bita Zeferanloo, Dr Linden Ashcroft, Dr Bill Birch, Dr Catriona Nguyen-Robertson, Mr Scott Reddiex, Mr Siddharth Verma, Dr Djuke Veldhuis and Mr Richard Blundell – we’re most grateful for your labours!

Video (YouTube Live)

A Few Images from the Evening

With thanks to our photographer, Paul D. (via Snappr).