WEHI scientist wins Eppendorf research award

Hamish Scott, of Melbourne's Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research, was presented with the Eppendorf Award for Young Australian Researchers at this week's 24th Lorne Genome Conference.

The award is designed to highlight the work of young researchers who are expected to have an impact in their field of research in years to come.

Presenting the award, Eppendorf's molecular technologies manager James Bond noted that Scott was the youngest recipient of the award in the four years since its inception.

Scott, who is a Nossal Leadership Fellow and NHMRC Senior Research Fellow at WEHI, studies genetic networks and pathways, using a variety of animal models and molecular technologies to identify important genes.

"Each gene or protein is expected to interact with four to eight other genes and have ten biological functions," Scott told the audience during the Eppendorf Lecture at the conference. "Altered biological activity, or mutation, of key genes or weak points in genetic networks leads to phenotypes."

These key genes in genetic networks were often found to be transcription factors, he said, and tended to be homozygous-lethal, autosomal dominant genes.

Originally focusing on human chromosome 21, Scott was responsible for cloning, isolating and identifying 24 of the 127 known genes on the chromosome while at the University of Geneva Medical School in Switzerland on a CJ Martin fellowship from the NHMRC. He also used gene expression studies to investigate the molecular pathophysiology of Down syndrome, which results from having three copies of chromosome 21, examining on the effects of having three copies of normal genes and the relationship to disease phenotypes.

At WEHI, Scott is continuing to use models of Down syndrome to investigate development, disease and gene function, but has also expanded his focus to include leukaemia, and other diseases.

He is also part of the Melbourne Brain Genome Project, a collaboration that also involves Assoc Prof Seong-Seng Tan at the Howard Florey Institute and Prof Colin Masters at the University of Melbourne, which seeks to use both normal mice and mouse models including Down syndrome, Alzheimer's disease and Parkinson's disease models to correlate expression with development, disease and gene function.