Celebrating Centenary Excellence

At our 2016 Annual General Meeting we celebrated Centenary excellence and highlighted achievements of our staff with the presentation of our annual awards.

Centenary Institute Scientific Image Prize

Images taken at Centenary are remarkable not only because of their scientific value, but also as they are so captivating visually.

1^st – Graham Keep – Structural Biology Program, image title ‘Membrane proteins collide’

2^nd – Rohit Jain – Immune Imaging Program, image title ‘Bloom’

3^rd – Natalia Pinello and Chau-To Kwok – Gene and Stem Cell Therapy Group, image title ‘Macrophages in the night’

To view our top six images in this year’s Prize follow this link

Annual Awards

Our annual staff awards recognise significant achievements and service – this year’s recipients are;

The Bob Thornburn Award for Outstanding Service – Aaron Campbell, Science Support

Translation and Commercialization Award – Associate Professor Jeff Holst

Team Excellence Award – Animal Facility

Centenary Axel Ullrich Award (highest impact factor for a paper) – Dr Holly Bolton

Bolton HA, Zhu E, Terry AM, Guy TV, Koh W-P, Tan S-Y, Power CA, Bertolino P, Lahl K, Sparwasser T, Shklovskaya E, de St Groth BF. Selective Treg reconstitution during lymphopenia normalizes DC costimulation and prevents graft-versus-host disease, Journal Of Clinical Investigation, Sep 2015; 125 (9) pp3627-364
IF 13.62

Centenary Student Paper Award (highest impact factor for a student paper) – Dr Philip Tong

Tong PL, Roediger B, Kolesnikoff N, Biro M, Tay SS, Jain R, Shaw LE, Grimbaldeston MA, Weninger W. The Skin Immune Atlas: Three-Dimensional Analysis of Cutaneous Leukocyte Subsets by Multiphoton Microscopy, Journal Of Investigative Dermatology, Jan 2015; 135 (1) pp84-93
IF 7.216

Centenary Paper with Highest Citations – Dr Ben Roediger

Roediger, B., Kyle, R., Yip, K.H., Sumaria, N., Guy, T.V., Kim, B.S., Mitchell, A.J., Tay, S.S., Jain, R., Forbes-Blom, E. and Chen, X., 2013. Cutaneous immunosurveillance and regulation of inflammation by group 2 innate lymphoid cells. Nature immunology, 14(6), pp.564-573.

Centenary Internal Grants

This year’s grants were awarded to;

Early Career Grants for Women in Centenary (Gender Equity) – Dr Kim Beaumont

Early Career Grants (Open) – Dr Ben Roediger and Dr Justin Wong

Presentations and Keynote address

The Annual Meeting featured presentations by;

Dr Peter Hersey – Head of Centenary’s Melanoma Oncology and Immunology Program

• Why melanoma has made the running
• How the checkpoint inhibitors work current status in melanoma
• The USA commitment and how this form of immunotherapy is being used to treat a large number of different cancers

Dr Jessamy Tiffen – Research Officer, Melanoma Immunology and Oncology

• Not all cancer patients will respond to immunotherapy or some will develop a resistance, therefore we need alternative treatment options.
• The epigenetic modifier EZH2 is altered in over a quarter of Australian melanoma patients and represents a promising drug target.
• Our lab seeks to understand how EZH2 drives melanoma and progress EZH2 inhibitors through to clinical trials.

Dr Mainthan Palendira – Head of Human Viral & Cancer Immunology Laboratory

• Identifying the T cell populations that are crucial for tumour control and metastasis in humans – Tumour resident T cells as key players
• Developing ways of boosting tumour resident T cells
• Predicting who will respond to checkpoint inhibitors -lessons from tumour resident T cells

Annual Keynote Address by Guest-of-Honour – Professor Bruce Robinson AM, Chair National Health and Medical Research Council

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