Researchers shine at Women in Technology Awards

12 Sep 2011

IMB’s Professor Jenny Martin has been named a leading female scientist, winning the Biotechnology Outstanding Achievement Award at Queensland’s Women in Technology Awards.

Professor Martin was recognised for her significant and highly influential research contributions to oxidative folding proteins, structure-based drug design and high-throughput technologies, as well as for playing a leadership role in the scientific community.

“She has demonstrated courage and tenacity and a capacity to communicate in lay terms the impact and importance of a complex scientific field,” the judges said.

“The number and range of awards and accomplishments she has achieved is a clear indication of the regard in which she is held.”

Professor Martin established Queensland’s first protein crystallography laboratory just three years after her PhD was awarded from Oxford University, and is now working on the discovery of a new class of antimicrobial compounds and new approaches to treat diabetes.

Her contributions to the scientific community include the support and mentoring of others and the promotion of science, including lobbying Australia Post to produce a stamp commemorating the 100th anniversary of Australian Lawrence Bragg’s pivotal paper that led to his Nobel Prize.

The awards were presented at a ceremony on Friday September 9. IMB was also represented on the night by Dr Norelle Daly, a finalist in the Biotechnology Research Award.

UQ Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Research) Professor Max Lu congratulated Professor Martin and UQ’s other four award recipients for their excellent work.

“These awards are a great way of recognising the remarkable achievements of women working in Queensland’s research and industry sectors,” he said.

“The fact that UQ scooped five of eight individual categories of the WiT Awards is testimony to the excellence of researchers at a world-leading institution like UQ.”

“We are incredibly proud of these five award-winning women researchers and their individual achievements.” 

For more information on the WiT awards visit http://www.wit.org.au/default.asp?PageID=18&n=Home 

Media: Caroline Bird (Office of Marketing and Communications; 07 3365 1931 or c.bird1@uq.edu.au) or Bronwyn Adams (Institute for Molecular Bioscience; 07 3346 2134 or 0418 575 247)

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