Honours Projects 2012
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FACULTY OF LIFE AND PHYSICAL SCIENCES Honours Projects 2012 CHEMISTRY AND BIOCHEMISTRY Chemistry and Forensic Biochemistry and Genetics and Nanotechnology Science Molecular Biology Biomedical Science Biochemistry & Chemistry 2012 Honours If you are interested in undertaking Honours at UWA, you may be already asking about the exciting prospects available within each of the Disciplines and sub-disciplines comprising the School. These include Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Biomedical Science, Chemistry, Forensic Chemistry, Nanotechnology, Genetics, and Structural Biology. This Honours Project book and the associated School Honours Expo are intended to help you explore the possibilities for 2012. If you intend to enrol in Honours in 2012, this booklet will provide you with a comprehensive overview of the interests of our research groups as well as outlining specific Honours projects that are available. The Honours Expo is designed to showcase the depth and diversity of research being undertaken in the School and will enable you to discuss particular projects or even discuss the design of new ones. We hope that you will enjoy our Expo and that it will serve as a good introduction to the range of Honours projects available in the School for next year. Professor M Spackman Head of School Honours Co-ordinators Biochemistry and Molecular Biology Chemistry Winthrop Professor Alice Vrielink Assoc Professor Sam Saunders Phone: 6488 3162 Phone: 6488 3153 [email protected] [email protected] Genetics Forensic Chemistry Winthrop Professor George Yeoh Winthrop Professor John Watling Phone: 6488 2986 Phone: 6488 4488 [email protected] [email protected] or Nanotechnology Winthrop Professor Lawrie Abraham Dr Robert Woodward Phone: 6488 3041 Phone: 6488 2751 [email protected] [email protected] Table of Contents Research Expertise Table Page I - IV Project Descriptions Page 1 - 66 How to Apply Page 68 Project Preference Form Page 69 Research Expertise Supervisor Research Area Discipline Page Genetics Biochemistry Genetics, Lawrie Abraham Biochemistry & 1 Biomedical Science Biomedical Science Molecular Biology Oxidative stress Dystrophy Aging Peter Arthur Biochemistry 3 Muscle Diabetes Bioinformatics Enzyme structure and function Enzyme kinetics Biochemistry & Paul Attwood Protein phosphorylation 5 Chemistry Histidine kinases Histidine phosphorylation. Catalysis Nanotechnology Surface science Murray Baker Chemistry 7 Biological chemistry/medicine Polymer science Molecular recognition, and sensors Structural Biology Protein Crystallography Biochemistry & Charlie Bond Protein:protein interactions 9 Chemistry Protein:nucleic acid interactions Gene regulation Apoptosis Genetics & Bernard Callus 11 Cancer Signalling Biochemistry Organometallic Chemistry Reto Dorta Chemistry 13 Catalysis Nanotechnology Microalgae Ela Eroglu Nanotechnology 15 Wastewater treatment Biofertilizer i Natural products Gavin Flematti Analytical Chemistry Chemistry 17 Separation Science Crystallography Simon Grabowsky Electron Density Chemistry 18 Computational Chemistry Physiology and biochemistry of milk Peter Hartmann Biochemistry 20 synthesis Theoretical Dylan Jayatilaka Chemistry 22 Computational Chemistry Organometallic Chemistry George Koutsantonis Inorganic Synthesis Chemistry 24 Molecular Electronics Molecular evolution Molecular genetic Genetics, Martha Ludwig Biochemistry & 26 Molecular cell biology Molecular Biology Photosynthesis Signalling Protein Interaction Bimolecular Fluorescence Complementation, 14-3-3 proteins Plant Histone Deacetylases Thomas Martin Plant nitrilases Biochemistry 28 Molecular Biology Sugar sensing in plants Nitrogen sensing in plants Sugar metabolism Nitrogen metabolism Environmental Chemistry Physical Chemistry Allan McKinley Chemistry 30 Analytical Chemistry Medicinal Chemistry Biochemistry plant mitochondria Oxidative stress and antioxidant defence Harvey Millar Biochemistry 32 Plant glutathione-S-transferases Protein mass spectrometry Proteome analysis ii Synthetic Organic Chemistry Matthew Piggott Medicinal Chemistry Chemistry 34 Chemical Biology Organic Synthesis Tissue Engineering Nano-chemistry Graphene Colin Raston Desalination Solar and Fuel Cell Nanotechnology 36 Technology Chemical Sensors Drug Delivery Microfluidics platforms Atmospheric chemistry Gas phase chemical kinetics Sam Saunders Chemistry 38 Reaction mechanisms Computational chemistry Genomics Ian Small RNA biology Biochemistry 40 Bioinformatics Genomics Genetics Cell biology Steve Smith Biochemistry Biochemistry 42 Bioinformatics Systems biology Metabolomics. Crystallography Mark Spackman Chemistry 44 Theoretical chemistry Synthetic Organic Chemistry Natural Product Synthesis Scott Stewart Chemistry 46 Palladium Catalysed Reactions Domino Reactions Carbohydrates Glycobiology Keith Stubbs Synthesis Chemistry 48 Inhibitors Enzyme kinetics Swaminatha Iyer BioNanoChemistry Nanotechnology 50 iii Enzymes Cytochrome P450 Vitamin D Robert Tuckey Steroids Biochemistry 52 Hydroxylases, placenta Skin cancer Metabolism Genetics Biochemistry Molecular Biology, Daniela Ulgiati Biochemistry, 54 Biomedical Science Genetics Molecular Biology Protein structure Crystallography Biochemistry & Alice Vrielink Enzyme mechanism 56 Chemistry Structure-Function Relationships Rationale Drug Design John Watling Forensic Chemistry Forensic Science 58 Mitochondrial biogenesis Gene regulation Biochemistry, Jim Whelan Phosphate metabolism Genetics, & 60 Biomedical Science Molecular cell biology Genetics Physical Chemistry Laser Spectroscopy Duncan Wild Mass Spectrometry Chemistry 62 Van der Waals clusters ab initio calculations Bioinformatics Microbial informatics Michael Wise Low complexity/natively unfolded Biochemistry 64 proteins Computational evolutionary biology Liver stem cell Genetics, George Yeoh Cancer 66 Biochemistry Cell therapy iv WINTHROP PROFESSOR LAWRIE ABRAHAM Room 2.58, Bayliss building, Phone: 6488 3041, Email: [email protected] Human Molecular Biology Lab Our group is interested in the transcriptional regulation of gene expression. We are also interested in the effects of genetic polymorphism (SNPs) on the expression of genes, particularly promoter and other regulatory variants.The focus is on genes that are involved in regulating inflammatory responses and understanding how genetically determined differences in expression contribute to diseases such as autoimmune disease, cancer and cardiovascular disease. To this end we are involved in the identification of transcription factors and upstream components of the signal transduction pathways that regulate these genes. Our long-term aim is to develop therapeutic strategies to modulate the activity of these genes through interference with such regulators in order to prevent disease. Students will be exposed to a range of techniques including DNA sequencing, DNA cloning, cell culture, transfection assays, RT-PCR, expression array analysis, siRNA knockdown, DNA binding assays (EMSA), protein analysis, DNase I Footprinting, Chromatin immunoprecipitation (ChIP) and FACS analysis. PROJECTS 1. The Transcriptional control of the CD30 Gene in Anaplastic Large Cell Lymphoma (Genetics, Biochemistry or Biomedical Science) Anaplastic large cell lymphoma (ALCL) is a variant of immunoblastic lymphoma and tends to be clinically aggressive, resulting in the destruction of the involved lymph node structure, the infiltration of the lymph node sinuses by large transformed neoplastic cells with prominent nucleoli. The major diagnostic marker of ALCL is strong overexpression of the CD30 gene thought to result from a transforming event that leads to neoplasia. Fundamental to our understanding of the causes and treatment of ALCL is an understanding of the mechanism of overexpression of CD30. The CD30 gene promoter, including an ALCL-specific hypersensitive site we have discovered in the 1st intron, will be characterised with respect to transcriptional control elements by EMSAs, CD30 reporter gene analysis and CHART (chromatin accessibility by real-time PCR). The transcription factors binding to the promoter and the 1st intron will be identified by use of a 2-dimensional proteomics technique developed in our group. Once cloned, the identified proteins will be tested for the ability to repress endogenous expression and reporter constructs by overexpression in cell lines and by RNAi approaches. Chromatin immunoprecipitation (ChIP) assays will also be carried out to establish the in vivo relationship between the various cis-elements and trans-acting factors, including sites of histone modification. The long-term aim is to develop therapeutic strategies that interfere with the transcriptional regulation of CD30 and so block the deleterious effects resulting from overexpression of CD30. 2. Characterisation of functional variants of Vanin 1, a QTL controlling HDL-C Levels (Genetics, Biochemistry or Biomedical Science) This collaborative project with the Texas Biomedical Research Institute, USA involves the characterisation of the Vanin 1 gene, which has been shown to be genetically associated with low levels of High Density Lipoprotein- cholesterol ("good" cholesterol) levels in the blood. Low HDL levels are a strong risk factor for cardiovascular diseases such as arthrosclerosis and heart attack. Twelve non-coding variants in the Vanin 1 gene were found that fall into 4 isocorrelated redundant variant sets (IRVS) show significant correlations with HDL-C as well as Vanin 1 mRNA expression levels. The