Events
Through knowledge exchange, collaboration and advocacy, our BABS Seminar Series will educate and empower audiences to improve lives and create real change.
BABS Seminar Series 2025
To stay updated on upcoming seminars bookmark this page
| Date | Time | Venue | Speaker | Title |
| 29-Jan-25 | 3-4pm | John B Reid Theatre G07, AGSM (G27) | Professor Eric Westhof, Architecture et Réactivité de l’ARN, Université de Strasbourg, Institut de Biologie Moléculaire et Cellulaire du CNRS, Strasbourg, France | The ribosome: a paradigm of RNA structure and dynamics in human health and disease |
| 6-Feb-25 | 1-2pm |
Patricia O'Shane G04, Patricia O'Shane Building (E19) | Dr Huan Ma, Distinguished Professor, Department of Physiology, Institute of Neuroscience, School of Medicine, Zhejiang University, China | Boosting neuronal activity-driven mitochondrial DNA transcription improves cognition in aged mice |
| 12-Feb-25 | 1-2pm | Boral Theatre G05, AGSM (G27) | Professor Martin R. Larsen, Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, University of Southern Denmark, Odense, Denmark | Post-translational modifications of proteins in regulating cellular signalling |
| 13-Feb-25 | NA - No BABS seminar this Thursday | |||
| 20-Feb-25 | 1-2pm | LG03, Wallace Wurth (C27) | Tansel Ersavas - BABS PhD Candidate (special AI talk) | Bending Reality: How Generative AI is Transforming Biology and Beyond |
| 27-Feb-25 | 1-2pm | LG03, Wallace Wurth (C27) | Irina Kozlova & Zheng (John) Su - BABS PhD Exit Seminars | Irina - NCAM2-induces EGFR-dependent actin cytoskeleton remodeling and filopodia formation in neurons
Zheng (John) - Unravelling the Complexity of RNA Splicing and Gene Expression Regulation in Health and Disease |
| 6-Mar-25 | 1-2pm | LG03, Wallace Wurth (C27) | Divya Shah & Veronika Petrova - BABS PhD Exit Seminars | Divya - Comparative analysis of 15 mitochondrial uncouplers reveals diverse phenotypes in cells and mice
Veronika - Characterising genetic variation in early development using mouse cortical organoids |
| 13-Mar-25 | 1-2pm | Civil Engineering G1, Civil Engineering Building (H20) | Peter Ruochen Wu & Jack Clarke - BABS PhD Exit Seminars | Peter - Classification and surveillance of bacterial pathogens in the genomic era: Bioinformatic innovations for Campylobacter genomic species classification and C. jejuni epidemiology
Jack - Molecular Adaptation to Cardiac Aging: How Exercise Reprograms the Aging Heart |
| 20-Mar-25 | 3-4pm | Webster Theatre B (G15) | Professor Patrícia Neves, Head of RNA Products Development- Bio-Manguinhos/Oswaldo Cruz Foundation - Brazil | RNA platform implementation in FIOCRUZ-Brasil: Seeding the innovation ecosystem in Latin America |
| 27-Mar | 1-2pm | LG03, Wallace Wurth (C27) | Assistant Professor Navid Bavi, Department of Physiology, David Geffen School of Medicine, UCLA | Structural and functional mechanisms of the cochlear amplifier at high resolution |
| 3-Apr-25 | 1-2pm | Civil Engineering G1, Civil Engineering Building (H20) | Pranita Poudyal - BABS PhD Exit Seminar & Dr Jacob Scadden, BABS Postdoctoral Fellow | Pranita - Role of prophage encoded sRNA EcOnc10 in regulating virulence in enterohaemorrhagic Escherichia coli
Jacob - Investigating Outer Domain Redundancy of the Bacterial Flagellar Filament |
| 10-Apr-25 | 3-4pm | LG03, Wallace Wurth (C27) | Dr Hugh Goold FASM, MRSN, MRSB, New South Wales Department of Primary Industries and Regional Development, Chief Scientist Branch | Synthetic genomics, how to build and study genomes by design |
| 17-Apr-25 |
|
| NA - No BABS seminar this Thursday | |
| 24-Apr-25 |
|
| NA - No BABS seminar this Thursday | |
| 1-May-25 | 1-2pm | Boral Theatre G05, AGSM (G27) | Dr Andrew Yam, BABS Research Associate | Developing novel microbial cancer therapy |
| 8-May-25 | 1-2pm | Mathews 214 (F23) | Grant Pfundstein - BABS PhD Exit Seminar & Dr Bea Delgado Corrales, BABS Postdoctoral Fellow | Grant - NCAM2 promotes convergence of APP and BACE1 in intracellular organelles: new insights into the molecular mechanisms of Alzheimer's disease
Bea - History of viral infection and host-response in children at risk of type 1 diabetes |
| 15-May-25 | 1-2pm | Mathews 214 (F23) | Muayad Al-Hadi & Dana Tribbia - BABS PhD Exit Seminars | Muayad - A novel relationship between L1 cell adhesion molecule (L1CAM) and the superoxide dismutase 1 (SOD1)
Dana - Down to Earth: Exploring novel strategies for microbial survival and growth in drylands |
| 22-May-25 | 1-2pm | Mathews 214 (F23) | Professor Mark Tanaka, BABS | How to tune genetic association like a piano |
| 29-May-25 | 3-4pm | Pioneer International Theatre G04, AGSM (G27) | Dr Dhanushi Abeygunawardena, Lecturer & Nexus Fellow, BABS | Strengthening student learning through program level curriculum design and assessment |
| 5-Jun-25 | 1-2pm | BioScience G07 (D26) | Dr Sandeep Kaur, Postdoctoral Research Associate & Riya Shrestha - BABS PhD Exit Seminars | Sandeep - A novel genomic-framework for the global surveillance and tracking of antimicrobial-resistant strains
Riya - Role of Acetyl-CoA Carboxylase isotypes in regulating liver tumorigenesis and liver protein acylation |
| 12-Jun-25 | 1-2pm | BioScience G07 (D26) | A/Professor Brendan Burns, BABS | Rocking the cradle of life….microbial mats and the rise of complex life |
| 19-Jun-25 | 1-2pm | BioScience G07 (D26) | Nishat Zaman & Tansel Ersavas - BABS PhD Exit Seminars | Nishat - The neural cell adhesion molecule 2 (NCAM2) promotes formation of synapses in the brain through increasing insulin and insulin-like growth factor 1 receptor signaling
Tansel - Discovery of Emergent Biological Patterns from Omics Datasets using Deep Learning |
| 23-Jun-25 | 1-2pm | Mathews Theatre C | Professor Carl T. Bergstrom, Department of Biology, University of Washington, USA | Peer review meltdown |
| 26-Jun-25 | 3-4pm | LG03, Wallace Wurth (C27) | A/Professor Elaine Sanij, Laboratory Head at St Vincent’s Institute of Medical Research (SVI) and a theme leader at the Barrie Dalgleish Research Centre for Myeloma and Related Blood Cancers | Targeting the nucleoli as a strategy to treat ovarian cancer |
| 3-Jul-25 | 1-2pm | BioScience G07 (D26) | Nicole Fenton & Gabrielle Smith - BABS PhD Exit Seminars | Nicole - A fast MARCH along the cholesterol biosynthesis pathway
Gabrielle - Cardiomyocyte epigenomics to understand divergent cardiac regeneration capacities of zebrafish and medaka |
| 10-Jul-25 |
|
| NA - No BABS seminar this Thursday | |
| 17-Jul-25 |
|
| NA - No BABS seminar this Thursday | |
| 24-Jul-25 | 1-2pm | BioScience G07 (D26) | A/Professor Fatemeh Vafaee, A/Professor at the School of BABS, Deputy Director (Science) UNSW AI Institute | AI-Enabled Biomedicine: From Diagnostics to Therapeutics |
| 31-Jul-25 | 3-4pm | LG03, Wallace Wurth (C27) | A/Prof Alain Wuethrich, Group Leader, Australian Institute for Bioengineering and Nanotechnology, The University of Queensland | Some Nanotechnologies for Monitoring Cancer and the Human Immune System |
| 6-Aug-25 | 11m-12pm | Patricia OShane G02, Patricia O'Shane Building (E19) | Professor Adrian Liston, Professor of Pathology, University of Cambridge | Building a positive research culture |
| 6-Aug-25 | 3-4pm | Pioneer International Theatre G04, AGSM (G27) | Professor Adrian Liston, Professor of Pathology, University of Cambridge | Harnessing regulatory T cells to combat neuroinflammation |
| 7-Aug-25 | 1-2pm | BioScience G07 (D26) | Janelle Ramos - BABS PhD Exit Seminar & Dr Pietro Ridone, BABS Postdoctoral Fellow | Janelle - Improved Diagnosis and Characterisation of Urinary Tract Infections Using Nanopore Sequencing
Pietro - From ions to force: structure and evolvability of the building blocks of Ion-Powered Rotary Motors |
| 14-Aug-25 | 1-2pm | LG03, Wallace Wurth (C27) | Maximilian Baker & Stephanie Nobs - BABS PhD Exit Seminar & TBC | Maximilian - Tilting of the neural cell adhesion molecule 2 (NCAM2) in the plasma membrane and its role in regulating synapse formation
Stephanie - Characterising a novel Asgard Archaea enriched from an early earth analogue environment |
| 21-Aug-25 | 1-2pm | LG03, Wallace Wurth (C27) | Alexandra Young - BABS PhD Exit Seminar & BABS Technical Team | Alexandra - Antibiotic Resistance in Uropathogens: Surveillance, Genomics & Emerging Threats
BABS Technical Team - Tech-ing It Up a Notch: How the BABS Tech Team Powers Your Research, Teaching and Laboratories |
| 28-Aug-25 | 3-4pm | LG03, Wallace Wurth (C27) | Dr Ivan Liachko, Founder & Chief Scientist, Phase Genomics | Linking the virome, plasmidome, and resistome to the microbiome using proximity ligation sequencing |
| 2-Sep-25 | 3-4pm | Patricia O’Shane (E19; former CLB) Room G03 | Professor Sergiu P. Pasca, Psychiatry and Behavioral Studies, Stanford University | Constructing And Deconstructing The Human Nervous System To Study Development And Disease |
| 4-Sep-25 | 1-2pm | LG03, Wallace Wurth (C27) | Ashley Milton & Vibhuti Nandel - BABS PhD Exit Seminars | Ashley - Mind the Gap: How Weird Mammals Handle Unbalanced Chromosomes
Vibhuti - Evolving Biocomplexity – Insights from Experimental Evolution of the Bacterial Flagellar Motor |
| 11-Sep-25 | 1-2pm | LG03, Wallace Wurth (C27) | A/Professor Li Zhang, BABS | Emerging Aeromonas enteric infections in Australia |
| 18-Sep-25 | 1-2pm | LG03, Wallace Wurth (C27) | Benjamin Hanrahan & Anthea Lee - BABS PhD Exit Seminars | Benjamin - A Tale of Two Lizards
Anthea - Investigating the upregulation of titin as a potential treatment strategy for titinopathies |
| 18-Sep-25 | 4-5pm | LG03, Wallace Wurth (C27) | Professor Jan Lowe, Director, Medical Research Council, Laboratory of Molecular Biology, Cambridge, UK | DNA entrapment by Structural Maintenance of Chromosomes (SMC) complexes |
| 25-Sep-25 | 1-2pm | LG03, Wallace Wurth (C27) | Dr Scott Berry, School of Biomedical Sciences, UNSW | Global control of RNA Polymerase Il for mRNA concentration homeostasis |
| 2-Oct-25 | 1-2pm | LG03, Wallace Wurth (C27) | Assistant Professor Alexander Knights, PhD, Department of Orthopaedic Surgery and Center of Regenerative Medicine, Washington University, St Louis, USA | Integrative analysis of stromal-immune crosstalk in osteoarthritis |
| 9-Oct-25 |
|
| NA - No BABS seminar this Thursday | |
| 16-Oct-25 | 1-2pm | LG03, Wallace Wurth (C27) | Yau Man Christopher Luk & Si-Mei Xu - BABS PhD Exit Seminars | Chris - A silent troublemaker: Uncovering the hidden pathogenic role of Campylobacter concisus in gastrointestinal diseases
Si-Mei - RNA Matchmaking - Fusion RNAs in Gynaecological Cancers |
| 23-Oct-25 | 11-1:30am | Online via Teams | Karla Vinasco Pacheco - BABS PhD Exit Seminar | Microbial and Host Determinants of Lactate Reprogramming in Gastric Cancer Progression |
| 30-Oct-25 | 1-2pm | Mathews Theatre D (D23) | A/Professor Christopher Marquis, BABS | Bioprocessing and Bioproducts |
| 6-Nov-25 | NA - No BABS seminar this Thursday | |||
| 13-Nov-25 | 1-2pm | LG03, Wallace Wurth (C27) | Bianca Briscas & James Gaston - BABS PhD Exit Seminars | Bianca - Developing a microbiome-mediated intervention for the prevention of invasive fungal infections arising from the gastrointestinal tract
James - Lights, camera, action! Building light responsive DNA-liposome systems |
| 18-Nov-25 | 1-2pm | Pioneer International Theatre G04, AGSM (G27) | Assistant Professor Katie Galloway, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) | Gene syntax directs supercoiling feedback and chromatin architecture |
| 20-Nov-25 | 1-2pm | LG03, Wallace Wurth (C27) | Associate Professor Debnath Ghosal, Department of Biochemistry & Pharmacology, University of Melbourne | Understanding the molecular logic of human oral microbiome |
| 16-Dec-25 | 1-2pm | Pioneer International Theatre G04, AGSM (G27) | Dr Rhona Christie, Postdoctoral Researcher, School of Cancer Sciences, University of Glasgow, Scotland | Therapeutically Targetable Vulnerabilities to Ferroptosis in Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia |
More information is available for BABS staff and research students on the BABS SharePoint site.