Top graduates earn Monash Awards

Two University of Adelaide graduates have been awarded Australia's most prestigious postgraduate scholarships to undertake further study at the world's best universities.

The General Sir John Monash Award provides the winners with financial support up to the value of $150,000 over three years. They are awarded for academic excellence, leadership and community service.

Gemma Sharp has a Bachelor of Science (Molecular Biology), a Bachelor of Science (First Class Honours) - which earned her a University Medal - and a Diploma in Languages (Japanese) from the University of Adelaide.

Gemma has a passion for breast cancer research, and will use her Monash Award to study for a PhD at the University of Cambridge in the UK. Gemma's research aims to identify genes as prognostic markers for detecting, monitoring and treating breast cancer.

"Breast cancer is the primary cause of cancer-related death in Australian women and I hope my research will help ameliorate this problem," Gemma said.

Owen Siggs has a Bachelor of Science (Molecular Biology) and Diploma of Languages (German) from the University of Adelaide and a Bachelor of Science (Honours) from the Australian National University.

Since graduation, he has worked as a Research Assistant at the John Curtin School of Medical Research, Canberra, and more recently at the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute, Melbourne.

Owen's ambition is to lead Australian research into the prevention and treatment of genetic disease. To that end, he will use his Monash Award to pursue a joint PhD/DPhil at The Scripps Research Institute in the United States and the University of Oxford in the UK.

"The greatest attraction of this award was the freedom to use it at the best institutions in our chosen fields. It's now our responsibility to use this experience to benefit our nation," Owen said.