Message from the Head of DepartmentWelcome back to the New Year! Unfortunately, the need for budget cuts has not gone away with Father Christmas. So we are still in the situation of on the one hand everything is going extremely well and on the other hand we need to find significant savings. If you have any ideas how we can collaborate to reduce expenditure – please tell Cheryl or me. At the moment I can only promise gratitude in exchange! We are going to have to work hard together to ensure our undergraduate and graduate students still get a high quality student experience despite the environment. As I have said to many people, I am old enough to have lived through this sort of thing before and I can honestly say that if we all try to work strategically and collegially we’ll be in a better place overall when the corner is turned. Despite all, I am anticipating another good year for the department. I encourage you to wake up every morning deciding to be a half glass full person who looks to support their colleagues to do high quality science. Best wishes Alison Department Updates MQ Coronavirus webpageThe University has created a University Taskforce to develop and implement strategies to assist students and ensure communication is provided in a timely manner. Please keep up to date with the latest information provided on the MQ Coronavis webpage and Federal Government advice page. Orientation Day 2020Our Faculty day is Tuesday 18th February. Students are invited to attend a Faculty welcome talk from 9.30-10.30am then there will be sessions to cover each disciplinary area, see program below. There will be a social activation zone (including a food truck for students) on the lawns behind 12WW and games will be set up in the area outside 9WW. Student Services will be available at 12WW ground floor to assist with general academic advice. Please feel free to drop by throughout the day! Achievements Congratulations to Dr Andrew Care! Cancer Australia (and partnered charities) selected to fund Andrew's Priority-driven Collaborative Cancer Research Scheme Grant (PdCCRS) application entitled: “Cage fighting" with Neuroblastoma: Engineering a protein nanocage for targeted ionophoric-copper therapy'. This ECR-specific grant is for 2 years and has a total value of $192K.
Congratulations to Sinead Keaveney on winning a travel award from the RACI to attend the Commonwealth Chemistry Congress. Sinead will have the opportunity to present and discuss her work, participate in topical panel discussions, network and hear inspiring keynote lectures from leading practitioners. Congratulations to Peter Karuso for publishing a paper in JACS titled 'Redesigning the chromophore of Green Fluorescent Protein for ratiometric sensing'. Peter is in discussion with Merck AG in Darmstadt on Recent Events
ConocoPhillips Macquarie Science ExperienceWe would like to thank all the wonderful staff and students who helped make the ConocoPhillips Macquarie Science Experience and the Camp Aspire STEM stream such a success in mid January. We had a full house with up to 80 students experiencing a range of STEM activities across the three days. They had a wonderful program including our chemistry magic show, career speed dating, learning about synthetic biology, 3D printing and astronomy, becoming part of the citizen science project vegesafe and dustsafe, learning about Aboriginal bush soap making with Aunty Rosie, along with so much else. Thank you especially to Josh Wilson, PACE students Giulia, Lanting, Jaskirat and Luke, and the wonderful Molecular Sciences students, as well as everyone else involved across our academic, research and technical staff. The Molecular Sciences students certainly stood out with their new T-shirts.
Upcoming Events and Notices Would you like to enhance our MQ students' experience through being a private tutor? We have already been fielding questions from new students for private tutors for first-year chemistry and would like to have a list of potential private tutors for our students. If you feel you would be able to help, please provide us with a short paragraph on any experience you have in tutoring, and why you feel you would be suitable before Monday 24th February.
2020 Chemistry Bridging Course will be running from 17th February to 20th February. This course is designed for students who are studying science at Macquarie University in 2020 but did not study chemistry at HSC level, for those needing to gain confidence in chemistry and for those students who want a refresher course in chemistry. Department Seminar ScheduleTue 18th February: Bioengineered growth factor delivery systems for vascular applications Weekly seminar by Associate Professor Megan Lord, University of New South Wales (1 - 2pm, 4WW322 seminar room) Fri 21st February: Metalloantibiotics, a new weapon in the fight against antimicrobial resistance? Special seminar by Dr Angelo Frei, University of Queensland (2 - 3pm, 4WW322 seminar room) Contact UsDepartment of Molecular Sciences, Macquarie University Please send any news, announcements or achievements you would like to share with the department to MolSci Reception! |