Thompson Prize night, 2007

This year’s Thompson prize evening held at Macquarie University saw some very impressive talks by the five PhD student finalists. The first, by Ignatius Pang (UNSW), talked about probing protein interaction networks by sectioning proteins into core, module or attachment protein classes. Lily Ting, also from UNSW, presented a quantitative proteomic approach to investigate proteins important in the cold adaptation of the marine ultramicrobacterium Sphingophyxis alaskensis. The third (and winning) talk was by George Craft from the CMRI Westmead who gave us an interesting insight into the dynamic world of synaptic vesicle endocytosis in nerve terminals and the role of the dephosphin amphiphysin I. The fourth speaker of the evening, Meghna Sobti (Macquarie Uni), told us about the ring-forming Lsm proteins, which have diverse roles in RNA-processing pathways such as splicing, post-transcriptional modification and degradation. The final talk was given by Mugdha Bhati (U Syd) who explained the intricate combinatorial association of LIM-homeodomain proteins that confer motor neuron specificity.

The talks were followed by supper (sponsored by SPG) and drinks (sponsored by APAF) in a very peaceful courtyard setting. The winners of the annual Lorne Travel Scholarships were: Morgan Gadd (U Syd) who won the Greg Ralston memorial scholarship and Lily Ting (UNSW) and Robyn Mansfield (U Syd) who won the scholarships sponsored by Bio-Rad and GE Healthcare respectively. The SPG would like to thank the Thompson prize organisers: Bridget Mabbutt, Tom Roberts and Louise Brown for their excellent efforts. The judges: Daniela Stock (VCCRI), Nicki Packer (Macquarie) and Stuart Cordwell (U Syd) also deserve a big thanks for giving their time to judge this event and who had a hard time deciding the winner for the evening!  Finally, thank you to all the students who entered both the Thompson prize and Lorne Scholarships, the standard of applications was very high, so please enter in 2008 if you were not successful this time around.