NewsletterThe 16th Australian Association of Chinese Biomedical Scientists (AACBS) Annual Scientific Meeting
Theme: RECONNECT
Date: Saturday, 26 November 2022
Venue: Southern Sydney Event Centre, Club Central Hurstville, 2 Croft Ave, Hurstville NSW 2220 (2 minutes’ walk from Hurstville train station, $10 flat rate on-site parking)
Presenting language: English or Chinese
Organizers: AACBS Scientific Committee (Chair: A/Prof Yanchuan Shi, Dr Kevin Ni, A/Prof Belamy Cheung, Dr Jacob Qi, and Dr Kaitao Lai)
9:30 - 10:15 REGISTRATION & MEMBERSHIP REGISTRATION/RENEWAL
10:15 - 10:20 OPENING ADDRESS AACBS President: A/Prof Belamy Cheung
10:20 - 12:20 INVITED KEYNOTES Chairs: Prof Yong Li & A/Prof Fanfan Zhou
Prof Ping Yu, UoW: Empowering Health and Biomedical Science with AI
A/Prof Pengyi Yang, USYD: Computational methods for characterising cell identity in human eyes and retinal organoids
A/Prof Qihan Dong, WSU: Establishment of a platform screening for chemopreventative agents
A/Prof Yanchuan Shi, Garvan: Periphery-based Therapy: A Novel Angle on Obesity and Diabetes Intervention
A/Prof Tao Liu, UNSW: Long non-coding RNAs and RNA methyltransferases as tumorigenic factors and therapeutic targets
Dr Yuchen Feng, UoN: Long non-coding RNA and Cancer: from Mechanism to Therapy
12:20 - 12:40 GROUP PHOTO
12:40 - 13:40 LUNCH BREAK, NETWORKING & MEMBERSHIP REGISTRATION/RENEWAL
13:40 – 14:20 PhD STUDENTS RAPID FIRE PRESENTATIONS Chairs: Prof Chao Deng & A/Prof Li Zhang. Judging panel led by Dr Jacob Qi
1. Haijie Tang, UoN, Madecassoside ameliorates lipopolysaccharide-induced neurotoxicity in rats by activating the Nrf2-HO-1 pathway
2. Daenikka Ravindrarajah, CCI, Synthetic lethality CRISPR screening for developing novel combination therapies for the treatment of high-risk sarcomas and neuroblastoma in children
3. Janney Wang, USYD, Discovery of FZ12 as a potential Uveal Melanoma lead compound
4. Xiaohong Zhao, UoN, Disruption of nucleotide homeostasis confers cancer cell susceptibility to oxidative phosphorylation inhibition independently of energy depletion
5. Liang Xu, UoN, Exploring long noncoding RNAs for cancer diagnosis and treatment
6. Yu (Jerry) Huang, Centenary, Targeting lipids to regulate vascular cell senescence
7. Ran Xu, UoN, Oxidative phosphorylation as a potential therapeutic target for lung squamous cell carcinoma treatment
8. Emma Li, UNSW, TMEM41B and VMP1 are scramblases and regulate the distribution of cholesterol and phosphatidylserine
14:20 - 15:00 ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING A/Prof Belamy Cheung: President’s Report Dr Bin Wang: Treasurer’s Report
15:00 - 15:20 BEST PHD STUDENT PRESENTATION AWARD CEREMONY Presented by A/Prof Belamy Cheung & Dr Jacob Qi
15:20 - 16:20 INVESTIGATOR GRANT WORKSHOP & PANEL DISCUSSION Mediator: A/Prof Yanchuan Shi
Panelists: Prof Xudong Zhang, Leadership Level 2, 2023, UoN
A/Prof Lei Jin, Emerging Leadership Level 2, 2020, UoN
A/Prof Qi Cao, Emerging Leadership Level 2, 2022, USYD
Dr Peter Su, Emerging Leadership Level 1, 2020, UTS
16:20 END
PROUDLY SPONSORED BY
Australian Genome Research Facility
KEYNOTE SPEAKER PROFILES
Professor Ping Yu
Prof. Ping Yu is the Director of the Centre for Digital Transformation in the School of Computing and Information Technology, University of Wollongong. Prof. Yu is an Elected Fellow of the Australasian Institute of Digital Health, and a Senior Member of the IEEE Computer Society. Her contribution to digital health transformation is recognised by the 2022 Telstra Brilliant Women in Digital Health award.
Prof. Yu is a leader in collaborative, industry-based research that advocates and supports the digital transformative agenda of health and aged care sectors in Australia and overseas. Prof. Yu is one of the pioneer researchers in the world of digital aged care research and mobile health research. Prof. Yu’s current research focus is the application of AI technologies to improve health and aged care. These include codifying health knowledge in computerised ontology, health data mining and machine learning, and patient journey mapping.
A/Prof Pengyi Yang
Pengyi Yang is a NHMRC Investigator and an Associate Professor at The University of Sydney. He heads the Laboratory of Computational Systems Biology at the Children’s Medical Research Institute. He worked as a Research Fellow in Systems Biology at National Institutes of Health, USA, and subsequently joined the School of Mathematics and Statistics, The University of Sydney, as a tenured faculty member to establish his research program, specialising in developing machine learning and statistical models for characterising molecular networks underlying cell identity and fate decisions. He will present computational methods for characterising cell identity in human eyes and retinal organoids.
A/Prof Qihan Dong
Qihan Dong graduated from Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, and was awarded PhD at the University of Sydney. He continued as a Fogarty Fellow at the NIH. After returning to Sydney University, he served as Head of the Cancer Biology Group. By invitation, he also took a teaching position at Western Sydney University. He is appointed as an adjunct professor at Shanghai University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, and overseas Fellow of the British Royal Society of Medicine.
A/Prof Yanchuan Shi
Dr Shi is a medically trained scientist, currently group leader of the Obesity and Metabolic Disease Research Group at the Garvan Institute. She is conjoint Associate Professor within the St Vincent’s Clinical School, Faculty of Medicine, UNSW Sydney. Dr Shi graduated from Harbin Medical University, China and obtained her PhD from UNSW in 2006. She undertook her post-doctoral training in Neuroscience at Garvan and was promoted to Group Leader of Neuroendocrinology in 2014. She also successfully re-qualified for her Australian medical licence in 2012. Dr Shi’s research focuses on the neuroendocrine regulation of feeding, adipose tissue thermogenesis & metabolism, pancreatic beta cell function and obesity-related CVD and cancers, with emphasis on the neuropeptide Y (NPY) system. She is also interested in inter-organ cross talk in obesity and diabetes and potential contribution of non-caloric nutrients in modulating energy balance.
A/Prof Tao Liu
Dr Tao Liu obtained his PhD degree from The University of New South Wales (UNSW) in 2000. He is the Group Leader of Gene Dysregulation Group at Children’s Cancer Institute Australia and a Conjoint Associate Professor at UNSW with > 100 publications. He has a strong track record in studying the roles of transcriptional super-enhancers, long noncoding RNAs and RNA methyltransferases in tumorigenesis and as cancer therapy targets. His research is currently funded by the US National Institutes of Health, Department of Defense and NHMRC. He will present “Long noncoding RNAs and RNA methyltransferases as tumorigenic factors and therapeutic targets”.
Dr Yuchen Feng
Dr Yuchen Feng is currently a Cancer Institute NSW Early Career Fellow at the University of Newcastle. Feng’s research focuses on the study of functional roles and mechanisms of long non-coding RNA (lncRNA) in cancer and the development of lncRNA-targeted cancer therapy. Although just finished her PhD early last year, Feng has published 11 papers in high-impact journals, including Nature Communications [x3 (2021, 2020, 2019)], Cancer Research [x2 (2018, 2017)] and Chemical Engineering Journal [2022]. As the CIA, she has been awarded more than $700,000 in research grants, including a Cancer Institute NSW Early Career Fellowship (2022-2024) and a Hunter Medical Research Institute ECR Cancer Grant (2022-2024). Feng has presented her research at several national and international conferences, with the highlight being an oral presentation at the 110th American Association for Cancer Research Annual Meeting (Atlanta, 2019).
NHMRC INVESTIGATOR GRANT PANELIST PROFILES
Professor Xu Dong Zhang https://www.newcastle.edu.au/profile/xu-zhang
Professor Xu Dong Zhang’s research career began with a PhD degree from the Faculty of Medicine, University of Sydney, after he practiced as a surgical oncologist in China for 10 years. Following a hospital scientist and, later, a senior hospital scientist position at the Oncology and Immunology Unit of Newcastle Calvary Mater Hospital, he was recruited to the University of Newcastle as a professor leading the Cancer Cell Biology laboratory [now known as the Noncoding Cancer Biomarkers and Therapeutics (NCBT) Group]. He was the Co-Director of the Priority Research Centre for Cancer Research, Innovation and Translation of the University of Newcastle and the Deputy Director of the Cancer Research Program of Hunter Medical Research Institute. He has published more than 200 manuscripts including those in highly ranked journals, such as Nature Reviews Cancer, Annals of Oncology, Nature Cell Biology, Cell Metabolism, Nature Communications, and PNAS. His work has been cited more than 20,000 times with a current H index of 62. He is one of the leading researchers in the field of lncRNAs in cancer in Australia, and, thanks to this, he has secured an NHMRC L2 investigator grant. His current research interest is harnessing lncRNAs for cancer diagnosis and treatment.
A/Prof Lei Jin https://www.newcastle.edu.au/profile/lei-jin
After receiving his PhD from the University of Science and Technology of China in 2011, A/Prof Lei Jin started his postdoc career at Kolling Institute, University of Sydney. He was later employed as a CINSW Early Career Fellow and a research group leader at the University of Newcastle. He currently is a National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) Investigator Fellow and co-deputy director of the Cancer Detection and Therapy program at Hunter Medical Research Institute (HMRI). His research mainly focuses on the functional significance and regulatory mechanisms of non-coding RNAs in cancer cell survival and proliferation. A/Prof Jin has published 56 papers in high-ranking journals including Nature Cell Biology, Molecular Cell, PNAS, Nature Communications, and Cancer Research. His work has been cited over 3000 times and currently has an H index of 31. As a chief investigator, A/Prof Jin has received more than 5 million AUD in research support from funding bodies including NHMRC and Cancer Institute NSW.
A/Prof Qi Cao https://www.westmeadinstitute.org.au/people/researcher-profiles-search/dr-qi-cao/biography
Dr. Qi Cao is a Principal Research Fellow at the Westmead Institute for Medical Research, The University of Sydney. He is currently the Leader of the Renal Inflammation and Immunology Group within the WIMR. He has longstanding research interests and extensive expertise in renal disease and immunotherapy, with a particular focus on the role of regulatory immune cells and their therapeutic potential in kidney disease. His research is highly regarded and well-funded with NHMRC project grants. In 2021 he was awarded an NHMRC Investigator Grant for his project entitled: ‘Developing novel therapeutic approaches by using innate lymphoid cells in chronic kidney disease’. Dr Cao received his PhD from the University of Sydney under the supervision of Professor David Harris. He serves as grant review panel member for NHMRC project/idea grants (2018-now). He is a member of the ANZSN, APCN and ISN. He has won 10 awards & prizes, including 4 Westmead Institute Science Awards (in 2015, 2016, 2019, 2020), Basic Science Award of ANZSN (2011), Basic Science Award of WCN (2019), ISN ECR Award (2021) etc.
Dr Peter Su https://www.qiansulab.com/
Dr QIAN (Peter) SU is now an NHMRC EL1 Fellow, co-funded with the National Heart Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow and a Senior Lecturer at UTS. He is also a visiting scientist at the Heart Research Institute (HRI) and Centenary at USYD. He received PhD in Biophysics supervised by Profs X.Sunney XIE and Yujie SUN from Peking University, China with a joint training at Harvard University, US (visiting scholar 2012). His research program named “Quantitative Imaging at Nanoscale with SUper-resolution (QIAN SU)” bridges applied biomedical engineering with fundamental sciences and medical requests. The QIAN SU research program brings new insights to mechanistic questions addressed at the single-molecule level by advanced microscopy. Peter is now establishing an “Imaging Profiling Platform for Cardiovascular Diseases (CVDs)” and exploring the risk factors of CVDs at the molecular level, which is supported by the NHMRC, ARC and NHF fundings.
