2024 ARC Future Fellowship Awards

A/Prof Kylie Dunning and A/Prof Danny Wilson are two of the three researchers from The University of Adelaide to be awarded the 2024 ARC Future Fellowship, speaking to the outstanding level of their fellowship projects.

Their projects are interdisciplinary in nature. We are delighted that The Centre of Light for Life will be supporting Kylie and Danny in their fellowships by providing advanced imaging modalities for their important life science applications.

A/Prof Kylie Dunning was awarded the 2024 ARC Future Fellowship for her project “A new wave for growing viable oocytes in vitro”. The project received $1,061,521 to pioneer a transformative and innovative method for growing ovarian follicles in the laboratory by suspension using sound waves. Her exciting work will improve our understanding of mammalian development and aims to increase the number of viable eggs from stored tissue, benefiting fields such as endangered species protection and assisted reproductive technologies.

A/Prof Danny Wilson was awarded the 2024 ARC Future Fellowship for his project “New approaches to define protein function during malaria host cell entry”. The family of parasites that includes those that cause malaria and toxoplasmosis are major burdens to human and livestock health. In order to infect humans and livestock, these parasites have evolved sets of unique and shared proteins whose functions remain unknown. Addressing these unknowns will greatly improve research into malaria prevention, as the disease causes >600,000 deaths per year. The project received $1,061,015 to tackle this question using a multi-disciplinary approach. Dr Wilson’s research has clear benefits to improving global health and treatment for malaria, with the potential to also identify therapeutic targets relevant to livestock health.