ASBMB

Sydney Protein Group

The Sydney Protein Group is made up of protein scientists and students from academia, hospitals and industry.

We meet regularly to hear updates from local and overseas speakers on the latest developments in protein science and related fields.

Scholarships and prizes are also provided to enable young scientists to attend key protein related meetings in Australia.

Join SPG

Anyone wanting to be part of the SPG, and who is not already a member of the ASBMB, is encouraged to join that association. Our funding from ASBMB is based on how many ASBMB members tick the appropriate box each year when they join or renew their ASBMB membership (so remember to tick the “I participate in the SPG” box!). Note that students are entitled to one year of free membership of ASBMB if their supervisor is a member.

If you would like to be part of the SPG (and are already a member of the ASBMB), all we need is your current email address.

If you are not on the mailing list (which is used only to send notice of SPG related events and is not passed on to any other parties), or if your details have changed in the last couple of years, please contact Derrick Lau (sydneyproteingroup@gmail.com)

Latest News & Events

Thompson Prize 2025 — and the winner is…

The SPG Thompson Prize talks were held on Friday the 28th of November at Macquarie University.

Attendees were treated to 5 excellent talks with topics ranging from the proteome-wide identification of enzyme substrates by artificial intelligence, the design and characterisation of next generation Glycine transporter inhibitors for the treatment of chronic pain, as well as the development and implementation of novel single molecule methods for studying pore-forming proteins and G-Quadruplexes.

All the finalists did a wonderful job, pictured below. After some very tough deliberations the judges decided to award the Thompson Prize to Alanah Eisenhuth from the University of Sydney for her talk on the structural basis of phospholipid transport to the bacterial outer membrane by the translocation and assembly module. Congratulations to Alanah for the prize, as well as to all the finalists for their fantastic work.

Congratulations also go to the winners of the SPG Travel Awards — Nicola Karakatsanis (UNSW) and Alexandra Stute (Macq. U) who both took home PhD Travel Awards, as well as Nikkita Maxwell (UoW) who won the Greg Ralston Award.

SPG would like to thank all the people who made the night possible. Firstly, our judges Bridget Mabbutt, Ian Paulsen and Alastair Stewart — they certainly had their work cut out for them! We would also like to thank the event sponsors: ASBMB, Cytiva, the Australian Genome Foundry and ARC Centre of Excellence in Synthetic Biology for making the Thompson Prize event and all its awards possible. Finally a special thanks goes to Bhumika Shah for hosting the evening.

Postdoc Symposium

The SPG Postdoc Speaker Prize talks were held last Thursday the 29th of May at the University of Sydney.

Jessica Buchanan (USyd) kicked off proceedings with her development of novel cyclic peptide binders for RIPK3. Next, Gesa Gruening (UNSW) took us through her work on the role of intra-protein motion in magnetoreception and light harvesting systems. Then Nicholas Marzano (UoW) presented his work on developing single molecule methods for studying the chaperone activities of Hsp70/90. Finally, Qiang Zhu (UoW) showed his work using molecular dynamics to study the mechanisms of Lin28 binding to microRNAs.

After much deliberation the judges decided to award the Postdoc Speaker Prize to Jessica Buchanan. Congratulations to Jessica and to all the finalists!

Congratulations also go to Alanah Eisenhuth (USyd) who took home the SPG-ASBMB Travel Awards.

We would also like to thank our sponsors, Cytiva & ASBMB, for supporting the event and the awards. Thanks also go to our judges: Joel Mackay, Anthony Duff, Aidan Grosas and Lachlan Adamson. Finally, we thank of hosts: Matthew Doyle and Rachel North for putting together an excellent event!

SPG is now on LinkedIn

The Sydney Protein Group has officially joined LinkedIn! Follow along to keep up to date on everything happening in Sydney Protein Science. Connect with us at https://www.linkedin.com/in/sydney-protein-group-56ba34392/

And don’t forget to follow us over on Bluesky at @sydneyprotein.bsky.social https://bsky.app/profile/sydneyprotein.bsky.social

SPG in 2026

The Sydney Protein Group will be back next year with the SPG ASBMB Postdoctoral Prize and the Thompson Prize. SPG will also be organising the 2026 East Coast Protein Meeting in Coffs Harbour from July 22–24. "

History of the SPG

The Sydney Protein Group (SPG) has three decades of history in promoting protein science locally. The SPG is made up of protein scientists and students from academia, hospitals and industry that meet regularly to hear updates from local and international speakers on the latest developments in protein science and related fields. The group started up in the early ‘80s with Michael Thomas (USyd), Elizabeth (Liz) Smith (then at Macquarie, now a Councillor in Tas), Mary Campbell (then at Macquarie) and Carol Morris (then at Prince Henry Hospital, now at Southern Cross University), as the main protagonists. Michael Thomas served as chair; Paul Curmi (UNSW) became secretary then took over the job in the ‘90s where there was a “changing of the guard” and Bridget Mabbutt (Macquarie) and Andrew Gooley (then at Macquarie, now at SGE Analytical Science) joined the executive. Bridget headed the SPG in the subsequent years as well as Tony Weiss (USyd) with Andrew Gooley, Bret Church (USyd), Alison Gould (then at Biotech Australia, now at Phoenix Biologix) and Brad Walsh (then at APAF, now at Minomic) on the executive committee. There was another baton change in the late 90s/early 2000s where Joel Mackay (USyd) took on the SPG chair with Jacqui Matthews (USyd) serving as secretary and Bret Church as treasurer.

Finally, around 2011 Liza Cubeddu took over as the President with Ben Crossett as Treasurer, Roland Gamsjaeger as web master and Chu-Kong Liew as secretary. Very recently, Jason Low took over from Chu-Kong.

In their own way each executive committee has influenced the flavour of SPG activities over the years, which has helped to keep the momentum flowing.

SPG Equity and Diversity Statement

The Sydney Protein Group (SPG) is committed to achieving balance across gender, geography and experience in all aspects of our society, including at SPG-sponsored conferences and events. We recognise that some sections of our scientific community are often under-represented in scientific conference programs and events. We will therefore seek all possible means to support equity and diversity within SPG and at other associated events.

SPG will also use data collected during registration and abstract submission, and data from past conference programs, to ensure diverse and gender balanced panels and speakers at SPG-sponsored events and conferences. We will also ensure appointment of our members on the SPG committee and conference organising committees is consistent with the gender balance of our membership. Further, we will strive to be proactive in examining and challenging diversity and gender balance at national and international conferences, workshop and events to which our SPG members are invited to, and participate in.

Charter of the SPG

SPG is active in promoting communication and networking among protein chemists based in Sydney and its near neighbours. The committee regularly organise one day meetings around 1 or 2 themes. During the year student prizes are also awarded to encourage young researchers.

One of the SPG’s main focuses is to design stimulating one day meetings around the major international meetings held in Australia by bringing together visiting international speakers and local speakers who can contribute to the theme of the meeting.

The SPG committee is also particularly committed to providing opportunities for our student members/young scientists and our annual Thompson Prize night in November caps off the SPG calendar. In addition to the Thompson Prize, which is awarded to the best 10 minute presentation by a young scientist, our corporate sponsors contribute two Lorne Travel Scholarships. The SPG also sponsors one student travel scholarship to enable attendance at the annual meeting of the ASBMB.

The SPG continues to grow due to the contributions from our committee and the tremendous support from our corporate sponsors.

Sponsors

The Sydney Protein Group would like to recognise and thank our sponsors the ASBMB, ATA Scientific, Cytiva, and Bruker (LCMS and NMR Division)