DECEMBER 2023
End of the year celebrations – A week end together with games, food and fun!!!!!
A great year with a lot of hard work and brilliant results for our lab, and most importantly an amazing team that makes all the difference.
Before the end of the year, our team pick up another award 😉 and Lawton went and receive the award for our Lab Research achievement from the Dean. Congrats to Lawton, Dimitra and Stephanie !
NOVEMBER 2023
APHIA 2023 conference in Perth
Great opportunity to see old friends and to Welcome new ones to Australia 😉 Jill came for the conference in Perth after a stop in Melbourne to meet the team and visit La Trobe.
Combio 2023 in Canberra was the perfect opportunity to celebrate with the team the ASBMB Shimadzu Award that Stephanie was receiving 😉
In same time Lawton took the opportunity to collect a new award too and Dimitra gave an excellent talk. Big successes are better celebrated together !!!
OCTOBER 2023
After many months of trying to grow crystals, You Min finally obtained crystals for a new protein 😉
SEPTEMBER 2023
The campus is home again to new chicks ! so very cute
Lets keep the theme of naming . Gras lab FPLC machines are named after characters from Finding Nemo! someone must love the sea … welcome our new AKTA go Gill, seated along side Nemo and Crush.
La Trobe University was welcoming member of BioNTech in the presence of Chancellor John Brumby AO.
AUGUST 2023
Time for some social activities with the team – the lab went mini-golfing … time to discover new skills with a friendly competition
JULY 2023
PhD students Samuel and Lawton helping with Discovery Tours for La Trobe Open day – July 2023 (photo courtesy of Dr Fung Lay).
JUNE 2023
Some beautiful crystals grown in the lab this week. Excited to take them to the Australian Synchrotron later this month!!!
MAY 2023
BIG CELEBRATIONS: NATURE PUBLICATION
Time for some celebrations!!! Science and research in academia can be a real roller coaster of emotion and this was one of the best moment. Getting an email from Nature journal to let us know that our paper on COVID-19 was accepted, discovering the first genetic link with asymptomatic COVID-19!!!!!!!! The lab had a few very well deserved days of party – Congrats to co-1st authors Lawton & Dimitra, and thanks to Danillo & Jill for such a fantastic collaboration.
May I present you Dr Andrea Nguyen 😉
Very proud moment when your fantastic PhD student graduates and become a Doctor! Well done Dr Andrea Nguyen !!!!
BioMelbourne Network for Women
BioMelbourne Network: connecting Women lunch. A great place to mix industry and university professionals together and also advance the progress to support Women working in STEM with some fantastic and inspirational speakers such as Misty Jenkins from WEHI!!!! – always amazing –
EFI 2023 conference was in Nantes. EFI, European Federation for Immunogenetics, annual conference was held in Nantes, France in May 2023. The occasion to learn about the latest discovery about Immunology and Immunogenetics, to network and see friends and colleagues. A conference all about HLA molecules !!! We also had a fantastic conference dinner at the famous “Les machines de l’ile” in Nantes with the conference committee arriving on the Elephant 😉
Third Antwerp TCR meeting held at the University of Antwerp, Belgium. A conference all about TCR!!! The dream 😉 Great to see colleagues from around the world (Paul Thomas, Nicole La Gruta).
Taking the science outside the Lab 😉 Sam & Emma went to school to explain our research to the community !!! always a fun activity and also time for challenging questions.
APRIL 2023
Squeaky clean! Everyone loves a clean incubator 😉
Bonus of leaving the lab late? Some gorgeous sunsets over the La Trobe moat
MARCH 2023
After Science Meets Parliament in Canberra it was the perfect opportunity to invite MP Rob Mitchell (Federal Member for McEven) to visit LIMS and our lab – Fantastic to be able to engage with decision maker and explain them the work that we are doing.
March was also the first of our LIMS Science Bites competition, where students are presenting in a short talk their current research with a “bite” of their data. Congrats to all presenters, and special congrats to Sam woh wins the Science Bites award for the Infection and Immunity category!
FEBRUARY 2023
We have welcomed our new staffs (Hannah and Janesha) and new students (Georgia, Cynthia and Jamie) with a nice lunch out together 😉 So nice to be working with a clever and fun bunch !!!
JANUARY 2023
An extremely busy start of the year for Lawton and Dimitra who worked tirelessly to prepare a lot of data for a rebuttal of a paper … fingers crossed the data look great & we will celebrate soon 😉
In between 100’s of litre of LB and growing bacteria, Lawton is having a quick break and catch up on the Ice Hockey games 😉
You need to have some fun !
Welcome back to work 😉 what a pleasure to return after the end of the year break and see your friends and colleagues in this amazing place @LIMS !!!! Ready for another amazing year with a lot of new researchers joining us in 2023.
Happy New Year for 2023, wishing you all the best for this new year.
