Myelin researcher scores AbbVie Student Poster Award

The AbbVie Student Poster Awards, held last week at AusBiotech 2015 in Melbourne, recognised the important research being carried out by Australian graduate students in areas such as pharmaceutical sciences, disease research, biology and nutritional science.

Research abstracts entered in the awards were reviewed by a panel of judges, with eight finalist abstracts presented in the poster display in the main exhibition hall at the conference. Dr Jonathan Anderson, medical director at AbbVie for Australia and New Zealand, announced the overall winner of the award as Alistair Cole from the University of Melbourne.

Cole, a student in the university’s Department of Anatomy and Neuroscience, received the award for his poster presentation ‘The role of Bone Morphogenic Protein signalling in oligodendrocyte differentiation and myelination’. His research is an attempt to understand the factors involved in myelin repair in the brain and spinal cord.

Myelin insulates nerve cells (neurons) in the central nervous system (CNS) and promotes rapid signal transmission throughout the body. The loss of myelin in demyelinating diseases such as multiple sclerosis (MS) leads to symptoms such as fatigue, dizziness, walking difficulties and impaired vision. These symptoms are initially episodic but eventually become permanent as the neuron degenerates; this is thought to be due to lack of myelin support.

“The long-term remyelination failure observed in cases of chronic MS has been linked to a multitude of different signalling pathways in the CNS,” noted Cole. “Our research on one group of these factors [bone morphogenic proteins, or BMPs] has led to identification of a putative drug target in the BMP signalling pathway. We are currently validating these findings with interest both in vitro and in vivo.”

Cole was thankful to receive the AbbVie Student Poster Award, stating that the reward is “a true group effort and reflects tireless work at the lab bench”.

“It is fantastic to see AbbVie and AusBiotech supporting student research into new areas of clinical importance,” he said.