The Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering (ATSE), the Royal Society of Victoria (RSV), and the Science Teachers’ Association of Victoria (STAV) warn of a crisis in science and mathematics education. With declining participation rates in senior secondary courses, Victoria is not developing enough STEM-skilled professionals to meet the state’s current and future needs.
While DNA analysis tells us the order of the amino acids in a protein, it’s much harder to predict its three-dimensional shape which is vital for understanding its function, production and interactions. In 2020, the AI program ‘AlphaFold’ was released. This program can predict the structures of proteins with high accuracy, fuelling a new revolution across many fields of biomedical research, and winning its creators a Nobel Prize in Chemistry.
By creating functional, lab-grown organs tailored to individual patients, bioprinting not only reduces reliance on donors but also mitigates the risks of rejection and a lifetime of immunosuppressive medications. Bioprinted organs can also mimic the intricate structures and functions of human tissues for testing personalised therapies, particularly for treating complex conditions.
Herbicides were initially seen as an easy remedy to manage agricultural weeds, but over time they have unintentionally fuelled the rise of ‘superweeds’—plant species that quickly evolve herbicide resistance, transforming a solution into a growing problem. Ryegrass is the target weed for the Adaptive Evolution Lab at the University of Melbourne, working to uncover its adaptive, evolutionary defence mechanisms.
What can AI do for genomic medicine? If an AI model produces a result that is outside our current understanding, but not necessarily in violation of it, can we trust it? Focus group participants who were presented with this scenario didn’t always have a clear answer. For many participants, this generally reaffirmed the need for human oversight of these tools.
