The University of Melbourne

From Neuropeptides to Toxins: Illuminating the Origins of Venom Complexity in Cone Snails

Abstract New genes and gene functions are key drivers of evolutionary innovation. Venomous animals, such as cone snails, provide striking examples of gene innovation, yet the mechanisms by which toxins arise remain poorly understood. Using the Conus textile genome, we uncover how...

Homicide at home: setting the agenda for an international collaboration to improve support for children bereaved due to family violence

Background: Bereavement due to fatal family violence (e.g. intimate partner homicide, filicide, parricide, siblicide) is a profoundly disruptive experience for children, with lifelong psychosocial consequences. Although the need for fatal family violence prevention is increasingl...

Histological aging signatures for monitoring tissue-specific aging and disease

Aging is the primary risk factor for chronic disease and is characterized by profound structural and architectural remodeling of human tissues. Here, we present a comprehensive assessment of these changes using 25,712 whole-slide histopathological images from 40 tissue types acro...

Co-designing the ConnectUp online platform to facilitate social connection, physical health and mental wellbeing in people with disabilities and carers

Introduction A mobile application and online platform ConnectUp supports people with disabilities (PwD) and carers to socially connect for physical activity. The platform will be optimised, implemented and evaluated between 2025 and 2027 aiming to integrate social connection, phy...

Skuas as sentinels of high pathogenicity avian influenza H5N1 on the Antarctic Peninsula in the 2024/2025 austral summer

Despite Antarctica's geographic isolation, the first incursion of high pathogenicity avian influenza (HPAI) H5N1 was detected in the 2023/2024 austral summer. Surveillance for HPAI H5N1 in Antarctica remains patchy due to logistical, financial and infrastructure challenges, with...

Effect of the November 2023 Medicare Benefits Schedule PSA Testing Reform on National Utilisation, Diagnostic Activity, and Health-System Expenditure in Australia

Background/Objectives: On 1 November 2023, the Medicare Benefits Schedule (MBS) introduced major reforms to prostate-specific antigen (PSA) testing in Australia, extending the minimum re-test interval for average-risk men (item 66655) from 12 to 23 months and introducing a new an...

Distinct cortical spatial representations learned along disparate visual pathways

Recent experimental studies have discovered diverse spatial properties, such as head direction tuning and egocentric tuning, of neurons in the postrhinal cortex (POR) and revealed how the POR spatial representation is distinct from the retrosplenial cortex (RSC). However, how the...

Chemovaccination with a late-liver-stage antimalarial induces durable immunity against malaria

Plasmodium falciparum sporozoite vaccines, in which parasites are attenuated at the liver stage, provide high efficacy but require complex manufacture and intravenous administration of high sporozoite doses. We found that a single low-dose P. berghei sporozoite exposure (intraven...

Acute kidney injury and renal replacement therapy: a critical synthesis of metabolic derangements and nutritional implications

Acute kidney injury (AKI) affects up to 50% of critically ill patients and is frequently complicated by severe metabolic derangements, requiring the initiation of replacement therapy (RRT) in 10–15% of cases. Despite substantial progress in the diagnosis of AKI and optimisation o...

Water, pipes and the cholera pathogen: The colonial politics of germs and water infrastructures in the Philippines

This paper examines how the politics of water governance intersected with germ suppression during US colonial rule in the Philippines. Drawing on historical materials and policy documents, we critically trace two interrelated processes of hydroterritorialization through which cho...

Tumour Volume Independently Predicts Metastasis in ISUP 2 Prostate Cancer

Background and Objectives: The outcomes for patients with localised prostate cancer are variable, even within defined tumour grades or clinical risk groups. Identifying features associated with disease aggression is imperative in contemporary PCa research. ISUP 2 PCa is particula...

Measuring Ocean Surface Waves

Abstract Propagating waves on the ocean surface can be represented as a stochastic process whose statistics are characterized by a spectrum. This paper reviews methods for measuring the wave spectrum and related quantities. Observations begin by sensing fluid dynamical properties...

Peptide thioamides: exploiting a single-atom substitution

Peptide thioamides, in which a single backbone oxygen atom is replaced by sulfur, display markedly altered structural, spectroscopic and reactive properties relative to native amides. This personal perspective highlights our group’s exploration of the unique reactivity of peptide...

Identification and characterisation of calcitonin receptor isoforms expressed in glioblastoma derived glioma stem and U‐87 MG cells

Glioblastoma (GBM) is a highly lethal brain cancer in which the calcitonin receptor (CT Receptor), encoded by the CALCR gene, is expressed in 78–88% of patient biopsies. Here, we investigate whether the CT Receptor plays a role in cancer cell survival. In cancer cell lines, knock...

Bosonic ghost correlators: a case study

A bstract There has been a lot of recent work addressing the representation theory that underlies logarithmic conformal field theories. A full understanding of these models will however also need analytic data, in particular the correlation functions. Here, we explore the correla...

Australian Grassland Association research symposium 2025 seeds of change

This article belongs to the collection: Australian Grasslands Symposium 2025 “Seeds of Change”.

Hypothermia in the intensive care unit after surgery: a registry based retrospective cohort study

Background Hypothermia is common in patients admitted to the ICU after surgery; however, its relationship with postoperative outcomes has not been fully explored. This study investigates the association between postoperative hypothermia in the ICU and patient mortality. Methods R...

Protective role of dietary antioxidant intake on long-term effects of extreme PM2.5 exposure on respiratory health

Objective: To test whether dietary antioxidants moderated effects of PM 2.5 from coal mine fire smoke on respiratory symptoms. Methods: We conducted cross-sectional analyses of diet and respiratory symptom data from 448 members of the Hazelwood Health Study Adult cohort. Individu...

Aphasia treatment research: a decision-making tool to guide the design of phased trials from the Collaboration of Aphasia Trialists (CATs) trials for aphasia panel

Background Systematic reviews of randomised controlled trials with meta-analyses indicate that speech and language therapy for aphasia after stroke is effective in improving communication. However, high-quality evidence to identify an intervention’s target population (who), regim...

Associations between lifestyle factors and 2.5-year clinical outcomes differ by time since multiple sclerosis diagnosis

BACKGROUND: Healthy lifestyle factors are associated with better health outcomes in people with multiple sclerosis (pwMS). Whether these associations differ according to time since diagnosis remains unclear. Understanding this may inform optimal timing for lifestyle modification....