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Eureka! Griffith University team prize for Great Barrier Reef research

A Griffith University research team have taken out a prestigious 2017 Australian Museum Eureka Prize for their work trying to save the Great Barrier Reef.
The team, led by Associate Professor Andrew Brooks of the Griffith Centre for Coastal Management, have discovered what may be Australia’s best chance of doing something timely to help the reef, transforming how sediment sources are identified and targeted.
As winners of the NSW Office of Environment and Heritage Eureka Prize for Environmental Research, the team were recognised at the Award Dinner at Sydney Town Hall on Wednesday night.
Griffith University’s 2017 Australian Museum Eureka Prize winners
Sediment run-off is one of the most significant threats to the natural wonder next to climate change.
About 900,000 dump trucks of dirt flows out to the Reef on average each year.
In the first study of its kind, scientists traced the path of fine sediment from its origin in the Normanby catchment in Cape York – the fourth largest

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New partnership supports Indigenous voices

A new $200,000 partnership between Griffith University and the Queensland Government will open up  academic opportunities for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.
Announcing the scholarship in parliament, Minister for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Partnerships Mark Furner said two jointly-funded PhD scholarships, worth $100,000 each, would be offered to encourage Indigenous Queenslanders to have more input in national policy, research and academic conversations.
Boni Robertson, Professor Indigenous Policy and Director of Indigenous Community Engagement Policy and Partnerships, said Griffith University was delighted to develop the scholarships with the Queensland Government.
“Both of these research projects will inform how Indigenous and non-Indigenous people in Queensland understand the impacts of the Protection Acts across a 90-year period,” Professor Robertson (left) said.
“Such a robust and thorough study of our past will help to bring new important perspectives to historical accounts and commentaries, and enrich the future of all Queenslanders in the process.”

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Drug breakthrough for mozzie virus outbreaks

Scientists have discovered a way that could help treat severe inflammation from an infectious mosquito-borne disease during outbreaks.
A team of researchers led by Professor Suresh Mahalingam at Griffith University’s Institute for Glycomics on the Gold Coast are developing ways to treat debilitating diseases caused by alphaviruses such as Chikungunya and Ross River virus. Their study is published this week in the journal Nature Microbiology.
Some mosquito-borne viruses cause severe joint and muscle inflammation, and there are no vaccines or specific drugs to treat the disease caused by these viruses.
Chikungunya virus (CHIKV), a re-emerging alphavirus responsible for several outbreaks worldwide in the past decade, causes debilitating joint inflammation and severe pain.
During acute infection with Chikungunya virus, scientists found that a molecular complex, known as the inflammasome, became activated in patients suffering acute signs of the disease.
“When we infected mice with Chikungunya, we found that a type of inflammasome known as NLRP3 was

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