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.
2026 ASBMB Fellowship Recipients
Noah Graves - recipient of the Fred Collins Award
His doctoral research focuses on the biochemical and biophysical properties of distinct α-synuclein fibril strains and their role in neurodegenerative diseases such as Parkinson’s disease and other related synucleinopathies. Using advanced single-molecule fluorescence techniques and structural biology approaches, he aims to better understand how different protein conformations influence disease pathology.
Noah’s research has been published in peer-reviewed journals including ACS Chemical Neuroscience. He has also presented his research at several international conferences including the International Society for Molecular Neurodegeneration meeting in Seoul, South Korea, the Protein Society 38 in Vancouver, Canada, and the International Symposium on Frontiers in Molecular Science in Kyoto, Japan. He has received several awards, including the Regeneron Scholarship Award, the Protein Society Diversity and Inclusion Award, the BrightFocus Travel Grant and the Best Resolved Structure award at the 2025 Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory cryo-EM course.
Through the ASBMB Fellowship, Noah will present his work at the European Academy of Neurology Congress in Geneva, Switzerland, and continue building collaborations within the global neurodegeneration research community.
University of Melbourne
Huw Morgan completed a Bachelor of Science (Honours) at the University of Melbourne in 2019, where his research focussed on the molecular mechanisms regulating immune cell function and tumour immunotherapy in the laboratory of Professor Justine Mintern. He subsequently worked as a research assistant before returning to the laboratory of Professor Mintern to commence his PhD in mid-2022. Currently, he is in the final year of his PhD under the supervision of Professor Mintern and Associate Professor Laura Edgington-Mitchell at the Bio21 Institute, University of Melbourne. His research investigates the molecular regulation of antigen-presenting cells such as dendritic cells and thymic epithelial cells, with a focus of identifying new roles for ubiquitination and deubiquitination enzymes in regulating dendritic cell function using CRISPR/Cas9 screening, activity-based protein profiling and in vivo knockout models.
Huw has published a first-author paper covering one aim of his PhD in the European Journal of Immunology, and is also co-author in journals such as Blood and Blood Neoplasia. He has presented his work at the Australian and New Zealand Society of Immunology (ASI) annual meetings and Biomolecular Horizons 2024, as well as numerous other local meetings. He was awarded an ASI Student Travel Bursary in 2025 and won a poster prize at the 2024 ASI Annual Meeting. This ASBMB Fellowship will allow Huw to travel to Lisbon, Portugal, to attend the 4th Ubiquitin Function in Health & Disease Conference, and a laboratory visit in London, UK.
You Min Ahn completed her Bachelor of Science in Biochemistry and Genetics in 2021 atMonash University. She undertook a Work Integrated Learning Internship in Distinguished Professor Stephanie Gras’ lab at La Trobe University in 2021 and completed Bachelor of Biomedicine Honours year (First class) in the same laboratory. Her honours research project focused on understanding the impact of SARS-CoV-2 mutations on antigen presentation by Human Leukocyte Antigen (HLA) molecules. Currently, she is in her final year of her PhD under the supervision of Distinguished Professor Gras, Dr Dimitra Chatzileontiadou and Dr Janesha Maddumage at La Trobe University. Her current research explores the specific molecular mechanism of CD8+ T cell-mediated responses against SARS-CoV-2.
Her research has been published in Nature Communications and Current Research in Structural Biology. She took part in writing two book chapters published in Reference Module in Life Sciences and Methods in Molecular Biology.
You Min has presented her work at Biomolecular Horizons 2024, EMCRs of the La Trobe Institute for Molecular Science Symposium 2025 and the Federation of Asian and Oceanian Biochemists and Molecular Biologists 2025 in Busan, South Korea. She was awarded the LIMS HDR Travel Award in 2024 and the AINSE Postgraduate Research Award top-up scholarship.This ASBMB Fellowship will support You Min to attend the 2026 19th International HLA & Immunogenetics Workshop followed by the Asia–Pacific Hitocompatibility and Immunogenetics Association Conference in Numazu, Japan, and a visit to the laboratory of collaborator, Associate Professor Chihiro Motozono, in Kumamoto, Japan.
Michael O’Dea completed both a Bachelor of Advanced Science (First Class Honours) and a Bachelor of Computer Science at UNSW Sydney in 2022. His Honours research lay at the intersection of these interests, training AI models on multi-omics data to better understand the problem of endocrine resistance in breast cancer. In his PhD, Michael has shifted from focusing on the whole genome to just one gene – fetal hemoglobin. Currently in his final year and jointly supervised by Professor Merlin Crossley and Professor Kate Quinlan, his project has developed software which harnesses recent advances in epigenetic sequencing to map nucleosome positions and reveal the role the chromatin landscape plays in repression of this key erythroid gene. He has also separately used CRISPR base-editing to dissect the mechanism by which ZBTB7A, a transcriptional repressor, mediates this repression.
His research has recently been published in Nature Communications and he has received several awards, including an ASMR Best Lightning Talk Prize, ASBMB Poster Prize, two Best 1-Minute Thesis Prizes, an ATA Scientific Young Scientist Grant and two ASBMB travel grants.
Michael is deeply passionate about the impact that scientists can have on the broader scientific community. He has played a key role in advancing sustainability across UNSW through the internationally accredited LEAF program, developed outreach programs for National Science Week and recently received an award for his teaching.
This ASBMB Fellowship will enable Michael to present his PhD research at the 17th EMBL Transcription and Chromatin Conference in Heidelberg, Germany, in August 2026.
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