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International research coup for Deakin
Deakin University has secured an international research coup for Australia.
The University’s Vice-Chancellor Professor Sally Walker has joined with Dr Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw, head of Biocon, India’s largest biotechnology company to sign a Memorandum of Understanding that will bring the two institutions together to work on a number of projects.
These include innovative plans to establish
a mammalian cell bio-processing facility at the Geelong Technology Precinct
(GTP) which is on Deakin University’s Geelong Campus at Waurn Pounds
in Victoria.
In India, the partnership will facilitate the establishment of a Deakin
Research Institute in Bangalore. This will also involve collaborative
research with Biocon.
The
Institute will have a focus on discovery and applied science in research
areas including drug development, biotechnology, new materials and intelligent
systems.
An important part of the Indian Institute’s work will be research training in India to meet the demands of one of the world’s fastest growing economies.
The benefits for young Australian scientists will be greater exposure to working with and meeting the needs of industry, something at which Deakin is already among the leading universities in the country.
The Institute’s facilities will include space for ‘proof of concept’ work based on the successful Deakin University approach to science and technology at the GTP.
“This is a significant move for Deakin University, providing first class links with a leading international company in key areas of research interest including biotechnology, metabolic disease research and wine science,” said Professor Walker.
“Deakin is proud of the great opportunities for development both in Victoria and in India to which this MOU will lead, including the Deakin Research Institute in India. We are pleased to work in partnership with our Indian colleagues.
“In Victoria, it provides a huge step towards the achievement of our vision for the growth of the GTP, both through a state of the art biotechnology facility, and the expansion of the University’s research program in areas which will have a positive impact on our communities.
“Over the last 15 years Deakin has developed a unique approach to research which concentrates on allowing partner industry organisations to drive fundamental research further along the value-adding chain than is normally the case in university-based research.
“The signing of this MOU provides international recognition for the approach we have adopted.”
Deakin University’s Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Research), Professor David Stokes said the initiative would not have been possible without the enormous support of the Victorian Government.
”Deakin would like to thank the Victorian Government and Invest Victoria for the role they have played and for their support for the project,” he said.
“In particular, we thank Mr Wayne Lewis, Victoria’s Commissioner to India, who has provided extraordinary support for this project.”
The Victorian Minister for Innovation, John Brumby, also welcomed the signing of the Memorandum of Understanding.
“Victoria has set a target of becoming one of the top five biotechnology locations by 2010 and can already claim top five leadership in a number of areas including stem cells, diabetes, malaria and reproductive medicines,” he said.
“The collaboration between Biocon and Deakin University creates an opportunity to secure major investment in provincial Victoria as well as future opportunities with India.”
Biocon, founded in 1978, is India’s largest biotech company. It is an integrated biopharmaceutical company employing more than 2000 scientists and researchers in the parent company and subsidiaries. It specialises in biopharmaceuticals, early stage drug discovery, clinical development and research, and enzymes. Thirty percent of company employees are women; and the average age of employees is 28.
Dr Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw has an affinity with Australia, having completed her PhD here.
“She has also been quick to recognise the merit of the way we do research at Deakin,” Professor Walker said.
“Again it is very pleasing to have this recognition that Deakin’s researchers are at the forefront of research, not just nationally, but internationally.”
Deakin University welcomes Federal Budget
investments in higher education
Deakin
University’s Vice-Chancellor,
Professor Sally Walker, welcomed with enthusiasm the Federal Government’s
budget initiatives for higher education announced last month.
The Australian Government will establish a $5 billion Higher Education Endowment Fund that will provide an ongoing source of funds to the sector to contribute to improved capital works and research facilities.
“Deakin University had been working for some time on a proposal for expanding its research facilities at the Geelong Technology Precinct which is based at our Geelong Campus at Waurn Ponds; this fund will be an obvious source for resourcing this exciting proposal,” Professor Walker said.
“The Endowment Fund and a number of other initiatives in the Budget in the ‘Realising Our Potential’ package will support the changes that Deakin University has embarked upon in the last four or five years.
“We have been working hard to ensure that Deakin has a distinctive mission and a distinctive set of core commitments that mark it out from other Australian universities. Many aspects of the Government’s ‘Realising Our Potential’ package will, indeed, allow Deakin University to realise its distinctive potential. We will be better able to advance the interests of the rural and regional communities we serve and better able to provide opportunities for students who might not otherwise enjoy the benefits that flow from participation in higher education.”
The Government has set aside $557 million
over four years for the Increasing University Funding measure which will
provide additional funding for key disciplines particularly in areas of
skills needs; and $211 million over four years for the Allowing more Responsive
Universities program which will give universities the ability to adjust
student numbers and course mixes to respond to student demand and address
skills needs.
“At Deakin we are committed to ensuring that our courses are relevant
and responsive to workforce needs. We work in partnership with industry,
professional associations and other employers of our graduates to ensure
that we direct our academic programs to the needs of Australia,”
Professor Walker said.
MORE INFORMATION
Research Services Division:
Geelong Campus at Waurn Ponds
Pigdons Road, Geelong, Victoria 3217 Australia
Telephone: +61 3 5227 2673 Facsimile:
+61 3 5227 2175
Email: dvc-research@deakin.edu.au
www.deakin.edu.au/research
Deakin Research Updates - back copies
Back issues of Deakin Research Updates are available at: www.deakin.edu.au/research
MATTHEW’S WINDOW TO A NEW WORLD!
Before he became an award-winning winemaker, Matthew di Sciascio ran a window manufacturing business.
In one of those lovely little twists life can throw up from time to time, he even supplied windows during the construction of Geelong Technology Precinct, little knowing that not long after, that very same building would be providing him with a window to a very different world.
Matthew, these days part-owner and chief wine-maker at Bellbrae Estate wines, a vineyard tucked neatly just off the Great Ocean Road near Torquay, is one of the star graduates from the Cool Climate Wine Making course at Deakin.
The course, and the man behind it, Associate Professor Duncan McGillivery, are housed in the GTP.
“I could never have achieved the success I have had without the knowledge and experience I gained at Deakin and without the support of Duncan,” said Matthew.
“I had been making wine as a hobby with my father, which was always a wonderful experience, but I wanted to take it to another level."
That new level includes winning the awards for the Best Shiraz and Best Wine overall at the prestigious 2006 Geelong Wine Show.
“Wine show scores are very good as benchmarks, they give you an idea of how you are progressing as a wine-maker,” Matthew said.
“I had won bronze and silver medals before, and had been pretty pleased with that.
“I had entered two shiraz wines in the Geelong Wine Show and I saw that one of those had won my first gold medal and was very excited with that, so excited in fact I didn’t bother to check how the other wine had gone.
“I couldn’t believe it when it was announced as the best shiraz and then best wine of the show.”
ANDRE'S PASSION SPEAKS MANY LANGUAGES
You don’t have to listen for long to Andre Renzaho’s lilting baritone to learn he is a man of deep passion – for his Africa, for Australia, his research at Deakin, and the people who will benefit from it.
“I love Australia, and I love Africa too,” he says. “Africa is my home, Australia is this wonderful place I have been able to come to in order to further my work.”
Andre’s work is as a Public Health Nutritionist. He did his undergraduate studies at Bukavu University in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the old Zaire.
For most people, completing undergraduate studies is a challenge enough, doing it in a part of the world that could often become a war zone adds enormously to the degree of difficulty, and the merit of the achievement.
Andre used his hard won knowledge to help other Africans, working with a number of aid agencies on the continent before in 1997 coming to Australia – already a favourite holiday destination – on a permanent basis.
His capacity to over-achieve didn’t stop there though. Before he could begin a Masters of Public Health, he first had to get his English up to speed.
“The Democratic Republic of the Congo is French speaking,” he said.
“In fact, I speak many languages, French, and many African dialects, but with my English, when I was working with aid organisations, I had interpreters.
“When I got to Australia and wanted to study, I needed to be able to speak and write English more fluently so I did a three month intensive course at LaTrobe Language Centre.”
Andre now has not just his Masters, and not just a PhD - one completed while he also ran a small business – but he has written two books based on his work; one called “Migrants Getting Fat In Australia” and the other called “measuring effectiveness in humanitarian and development aid”.
The first book is dedicated jointly to his late mother, Pilcherie Mutarataza and “the victims of poverty, deprivation, wars and upheaval”.
The debate is back....