Young Tall Poppy Science Award winners - Victoria 2002

Dr Vasso Apostolopoulos, The Austin Research Institute, works on the immunotherapy of cancer, concentrating on induction of killer T cells (CTL) experimentally in mice and subsequently in humans. This work has proved a major contribution to cancer immunotherapy and resulted in a number of significant publications. She continued to make significant advances in her research, including discovery of a peptide mimic which induced strong CTL responses to MUC1 (musin), as well as some novel findings on cross reaction of anti-gal antibodies and MUC1 which diverted CTL responses to an undesirable immune response.

Vasso Apostolopoulos is now a Professor at the Centre for Immunology at the Burnet Institute. 

Associate Professor Ian Anderson, VicHealth and University of Melbourne, has worked in Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander health for many years. He has undertaken a number of roles and gained achievements in a number of dimensions working as a clinician, as an Aboriginal person and advocate himself, as a policy maker, a health educator and as a scholar. Ian is leading the development of an integrated health services research and community development program primarily to focus on research action on gaps in knowledge critical to the improvement of health care delivery to indigenous people.

Professor Anderson, is the foundation Chair in Indigenous Health at the University of Melbourne, the first Aboriginal Australian to hold the position.

Dr Arthur Christopoulos, University of Melbourne, has established a strong international reputation in the field of G protein-coupled receptor (GPCR) pharmacology, focussing on the understanding of allosteric mechanisms at GPCRs, which represent the major targets for all drugs in the world at present. Through the development of analytical and screening methodologies, his work has the potential to result in novel therapeutic agents that will display greater selectivity and safety than current medicines for treatment of diseases such as Alzheimer's disease, schizophrenia and asthma.

Arthur is now a Professor of Pharmacology at Monash University.

Dr Sharyn Fitzgerald, Monash University, studies integrative cardiovascular physiology investigating the impact of various disease states such as hypertension, obesity and diabetes, on cardiovascular and renal systems. Dr Fitzgerald worked in Sweden developing the expertise necessary for chronic studies of cardiovascular and renal function in conscious mice. This is of increasing importance since the use of genetically modified mice is a rapidly developing field and has many applications for the study of cardiovascular and renal physiology in disease states such as hypertension, diabetes and obesity. 

Sharyn is now a Senior Research Fellow at Baker IDI.

Dr Anne Kavanagh, VicHealth, has established herself in the area of cancer epidemiology and is developing a research program focusing on the social determinants of health and health inequalities. She was awarded a VicHealth Senior Research Fellowship in 2001, the only one awarded that year, in recognition of her achievements up to that time. Dr Kavanagh brings to her research a rare combination of research expertise. She is not only a highly skilled epidemiologist, but also has expertise in social theory and social enquiry. This cross-disciplinary expertise makes Dr Kavanagh particularly well placed to be a national and international leader in the newly developing field of social epidemiology.

Anne is now Director and Professor of Women's Health at the Key Centre for Women's Health in Society (University of Melbourne).

Dr Margaret Kelaher, University of Melbourne, was Director of the indigenous and immigrant components of the Australian Longitudinal Study of Women's Health (ALSWH) at the University of Queensland from 1995-1998 and took a leading role in all aspects of research, publication production and acquisition of further research funding. In 1998, she received an NHMRC Sidney Sax Fellowship to work at Columbia University, where her research particularly focused on access to prenatal care and preventative health services among women in poverty and minority groups.  In 2001, she continued her work with the ALSWH at the University of Melbourne, focusing on indigenous health and the impact of welfare reform on women's health. She has also been involved in conducting training for an initiative by UNDP/World Bank/WHO Tropical Diseases (TDR) to develop capacity for social, economic and behavioural research in Third World countries. 

Her work in Women's Health has continued and she is now an Associate Professor at the University of Melbourne.

Dr Simon Lewis, Deakin University, has carried out research into the fundamental chemistry and analytical application of chemiluminescence reactions to on-line process monitoring and environmental analysis and, during 1997, he was invited back to the University of Hull to carry out investigations into the fundamental chemistry of the acidic potassium permanganate reaction. He has extensive experience of the application of solution phase chemiluminescence to detection in liquid chromatography, flow analysis and capillary electrophoresis. 

in 2006 Simon was appointed Associate Professor in Forensic and Analytical Chemistry at Curtin University of Technology in Perth.

Dr Gavin Reid, The Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research, whose graduate work centred upon determination of the mechanisms and production structures for the fragmentation of amino acids and peptides and determining the influence of these reaction pathways on competing "sequence" versus "non-sequence" ion formation. After completing his PhD, his work remains directed to the development of novel chemical and mass spectrometry based approaches for the identification and quantification of proteins present in complex biological mixtures, with emphasis on the identification of proteins associated with cancer development. 

In 2004, he relocated to the United States where he is currently an Assistant Professor at Michigan State University.

Dr James Whisstock, Monash University, focuses on the structural biology of and conformational change within the serpin superfamily of proteinase inhibitors. Additionally, he initiated a productive collaboration where he investigated the phylogeny and the role of conserved residues in the myosin superfamily and also played a pivotal role in generating testable predictions. In 1997, Dr Whisstock moved to Monash University. Since his arrival, he has founded the important new field of Bioinformatics and molecular modeling within the Department and initiated numerous new research directions. Whilst the primary focus of his work has been research into computational and structural biology, he has simultaneously continued his research on serpins and proteinases. 

Professor Whisstock was awarded the Science Minister's Prize for Life Scientist of the Year in 2006.