Roy Walker

Congratulations to our Centre Director Ian Paulsen on being awarded the prestigious Eureka Prize for Leadership in Science! 🎉

This award recognises his outstanding leadership in advancing synthetic biology in Australia and beyond. We couldn’t be prouder of this well-deserved achievement! 👏

Lithium deficiency and the onset of Alzheimer’s disease - Nature Lithium has an essential role in the brain and is deficient early in Alzheimer’s disease, which can be recapitulated in mice and treated with a novel lithium salt that restores the physiological level.

New @nature.com
The possibility that lithium deficiency is a driver of Alzheimer's disease. Experimental model shows Li depletion impedes amyloid clearance, and repletion in humans could be achieved with low doses
nature.com/articles/s41...

If interested, feel free to reach out to sbasydneyau[AT]gmail.com. I still plan to be involved and help out as the experience is something I’ve genuinely enjoyed. Of course, this is only for Sydney-based people

Time flies! I’m currently looking for a new talented volunteer to lead the Sydney Node of SBA. If you’re interested in gaining some leadership experience, running a team, and organising some fun events, please let me know by the 22nd of August

Pulcherriminic acid Biosynthesis and Transport: Insights from a heterologous system in Saccharomyces cerevisiae Abstract. Pulcherriminic acid is an iron chelator produced by some Kluyveromyces and Metschnikowia yeasts. Its biosynthesis is encoded by the four–gene PUL

New paper out by @aliciamv.bsky.social 🤩🥳

…where we study the yeast-based antifungal compound and iron-chelator pulcherriminic acid

academic.oup.com/femsyr/advan...

I’m petrified about today’s science news. Genetically modifying crabs to have cheetah genes? This could go sideways fast.

Researchers take first steps to creating synthetic human genomes | Wellcome Scientists are developing technology to create the first synthetic human chromosome. The ability to write large genomes could transform our understanding of health.

It's 25 yrs to the day since the Human Genome Project & Craig Venter declared joint victory in sequencing the human genome - an ideal time for @wellcometrust.bsky.social to annouce their new project, involving our lab, to begin work towards synthesising human genomes. wellcome.org/news/researc...

Scientists at Loughborough University create 'world's smallest violin' The violin is smaller than a human hair and has "laid the groundwork" for future research.

Well this couldn’t have come at a better time www.bbc.com/news/article...

Distribution of haploid chromosomes into separate nuclei in two pathogenic fungi Nuclei define eukaryotes, enabling macromolecular compartmentalization and cellular regulation. Each nucleus is believed to contain one or more haploid sets of chromosomes (1N). However, we discovered...

What's going on in fungi?? Chromosomes are distributed across several different nuclei in Sclerotinia sclerotiorum and Botrytis cinerea

Article in @science.org here: www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
And Perspective here: www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Dear all – I’m re-sharing this open PhD scholarship. I’ve now managed to secure funding for international PhD entry (and MRes if required). Please email me with a EoI if interested. Thanks!

It's an old ad, but will soon be updated:

www.mq.edu.au/research/phd...

Congrats, Daniel! All the best for the new role

Just to prove to everyone that I am working during my sabbatical:

I/We have a fully funded international PhD scholarship in sunny Sydney that’s just come online! This is part of an exciting collaboration between the ARC Centre of Excellence in Synthetic Biology and the Dementia Research Centre. More information here:

www.mq.edu.au/research/phd...

Construction and iterative redesign of synXVI a 903 kb synthetic Saccharomyces cerevisiae chromosome

Full text: www.nature.com/articles/s41...

#yeast #yeastbiology

From @hughiechops.bsky.social

A great opportunity if you're in to automation!

picture of DNA strand

I am looking for postdoc-level candidates interested in developing a joint application for the Australian National Intelligence Postdoctoral Grants to fund a position within a project on "Designing RNA with Custom Properties using AI". #synbio #ai

More info: www.jaschke-lab.science/opportunitie...

A fantastic full professorship opportunity is now available at the University of Heidelberg - the focus is on various aspects of Synthetic Biology and Synthetic Genomics.

jobs.zeit.de/jobs/full-pr...

I'm a yeast! With thanks

I've extended the deadline as I've had surprisingly few applicants! This is a great opportunity to work in a world-class environment as part of the ARC Centre of Excellence in Synthetic Biology. Please note this is not open to international students for now.

Hi – I (we) have an open PhD position for an enthusiastic student in sunny Sydney! Explore new approaches to yeast protein secretion, microfluidics and flow cytometry. Feel free to reach out and apply here. Please note this is for domestic students only. www.mq.edu.au/research/phd...

Just testing out BlueSky

Here's a link to our tRNA Neochromosome paper!
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...