ASBMB Fellowships

Up to five ASBMB Fellowships are awarded annually to biochemists or molecular biologists, each of whom is at least in the second year of PhD training and not more than 2 years subsequent to the award of the PhD degree, and normally resident in Australia, in recognition of their outstanding work in the field of biochemistry or molecular biology. Applicants must be members of the Society with at least 1 year of membership immediately prior to the application, or should have taken out a 3 year membership in the year of the application. The fellowships provide funds to assist each recipient to attend an overseas conference in a field associated with biochemistry or molecular biology or to visit briefly research laboratories in Australia or overseas to learn new research techniques. Each recipient will receive complimentary registration (Collins Bursary) for the annual ASBMB conference, thus wherever possible, fellowship recipients shall attend the annual ASBMB conference where their fellowship will be awarded. Each recipient shall provide the Editor with a report of the overseas conference attended or the work accomplished, for publication in the Australian Biochemist. Funding for the fellowships is provided by ASBMB. In each year, one such ASBMB Fellowship, designated the Fred Collins Award, may be granted for exceptionally strong research work by an applicant. Please click here to read about Fred Collins 

To view a list of previous winners please click here.

Application Information
- All applicants should have been members of the ASBMB for a minimum of 1 year
- All applications should include at least 2 supporters who should have been members of the ASBMB for a minimum of 2 years
- Applicants should prepare an application document to include all information detailed on the ASBMB Fellowships Application Template.  This document should be saved as a single PDF file ready to be uploaded as part of the online application form.  
- Applicants should have a letter of reference for each of your 2 supporters saved ready to be uploaded as part of the online application form.

When you are ready to begin your application, please click the button below.

Shouya Feng - recipient of the Fred Collins Award

Hudson Institute of Medical Research

Dr Shouya Feng completed her Bachelor of Science in Biology in 2018 at Wuhan University, China. She commenced her PhD studies at the John Curtin School of Medical Research at the Australian National University under the supervision of Professor Si Ming Man. During her PhD, Shouya investigated how antimicrobial proteins trigger the release of pathogen-associated molecular patterns and lead to the activation of innate immune pathways. Upon completion of her PhD, Shouya transitioned to a postdoctoral position with Professor Seth Masters at the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research and then at the Hudson Institute of Medical Research. She now focuses on the molecular mechanisms of innate immune signalling in autoinflammatory diseases.

Shouya has published 16 articles (six first/co-first author articles in Nature Immunology, Nature Communications, EMBO Journal, Trends in Cell Biology and Journal of Molecular Biology). In 2024, Shouyareceived an Early Career Research Grant from the Jack Brockhoff Foundation, an Australian and New Zealand Society for Immunology postdoctoral travel award and an EMCR oral presentation prize from the ImmuMon symposium. She has previously received student travel awards from the International Cytokine and Interferon Society (2022), the Australian Society for Microbiology NSW–ACT branch (2022), the Biotron Founders Award (2022) and three early career grants from the Bootes Medical Research Foundation as CIB (2019, 2020 and 2021).

This ASBMB Fellowship will support Shouya’s travel to the 13th Meeting of the International Society of Systemic Autoinflammatory Diseases (ISSAID) and a short laboratory visit to the Institute Cochin in Paris, France.

Daniel Fox

Monash University

Daniel Fox completed a Bachelor of Medical Science (First Class Honours) at the Australian National University in 2018, where his research focussed on innate immunity, inflammasomes and host–pathogen interactions. Currently, he is in his final year of his PhD under the supervision of Dr Rhys Grinter and Dr Gavin Knott at Bio21 at the University of Melbourne and Monash University. His current research focusses on the structure and function of transporters responsible for iron piracy in Gram-negative pathogens, where he leverages state of the art advances in machine learning to design de novo protein binders that can potently inhibit bacterial growth.

His research has been published in Nature Communications, Nature Microbiology, Journal of Molecular Biology, FEBS Letters, Cell Research, Science Advances and EMBO Journal.

He has presented his work at Cold Spring Harbor Asia in Suzhou, China, at the BacterialInfection and Host Defense conference, and Queenstown Research Week in New Zealand. He has been awarded an EMBL Australia Travel Grant, a Royal Society of New South Wales Scholarship, ICIS Milstein Travel Award, two grants from the Bootes Medical Research Foundation, and has won poster prizes at Lorne Proteins, Melbourne Protein Group Student Symposium, CCeMMP Research Symposium and SCANZ Crystal34.

This ASBMB Fellowship will allow Daniel to travel to Busan, South Korea, to participate in the Young Scientist Program as a part of the 2025 meeting of the Federation of Asian and Oceanian Biochemists and Molecular Biologists.

Cynthia Turnbull

Australian National University

Dr Cynthia Turnbull is a postdoctoral researcher at the John Curtin School of MedicalResearch (JCSMR) within the Australian National University (ANU). Her PhD, conferred in 2023, with Professor Carola Vinuesa explored the role of genetic variants in the development of autoimmune disease. She discovered that the anti-fungal protein DECTIN-1 is a novel regulator of the immune system and can exacerbate the severity of autoimmune disease. Currently, she works in the molecular biology laboratory of Professor Si Ming Man and hopes to identify more regulators of the immune system to improve the diagnosis and treatment of diseases such as autoimmunity and cancer.

Her research has been recognised by several awards including the Royal Society of New South Wales Bicentennial Early Career Research and Service Citations Award (2024), Australian and New Zealand Society of Immunology (ASI) BD Science Communication Award (2023), ASI Postdoctoral Travel Award (2024), ANU Early Career Travel Award (2024) and the Biotron Founders Grant International Travel Award (2023).

Outside of the lab, Cynthia has a passion for teaching and science communication. She has provided guest lectures at ANU, been invited to present at Australian and international research institutes and conferences, and has featured in several media articles and radio talk shows.

This ASBMB Fellowship will allow Cynthia to attend the 19th International Congress of Immunology in Vienna, Austria, in August 2025.

Xuan Ling Hilary Yong

University of Queensland

Dr Hilary Yong completed a PhD in neuroscience and is passionate about uncoveringnovel molecular pathways underlying synaptic plasticity and memory formation. Under the mentorship of Associate Professor Victor Anggono at the Queensland Brain Institute, University of Queensland, she identified key molecular pathways regulating presynaptic and synaptic plasticity with implications for neurological disorders. Her scientific contributions have led to 12 publications, including two first-author articles in Cell Reports, as well as co-authored studies published in leading journals such as Nature Communications and the Journal of Neuroscience.

Hilary has been recognised for her scientific accomplishments, receiving the Ian Lindenmayer PhD Top-Up Scholarship and Dean’s Award for Outstanding Thesis, and international travel fellowships from the Society for Neuroscience and the Young Scientist Program. She also contributed to securing an NHMRC Ideas Grant, further supporting her research into synaptic function. Hilary is now a postdoctoral researcher under the continued guidance of Associate Professor Anggono.

This ASBMB Fellowship will provide Hilary with the opportunity to attend the Gordon Research Conference on the Cell Biology of the Neuron in Tuscany, Italy, where she will present her latest findings.