成人大片

Monash Awards to Adelaide graduates

Adelaide's General Sir John Monash Award winners for 2007 are Owen Siggs (far left) and Gemma Sharp (far right), pictured here with Adelaide's 2005 Monash Award winners, Katherine Daniell and Olivia Thorne (back), and Professor Fay Gale AO, Chair of the SA Selection Panel for the Awards (centre)
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Monash Award winner Gemma Sharp with Governor-General Michael Jeffery at Government House
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Monash Award winner Owen Siggs with Governor-General Michael Jeffery at Government House
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Wednesday, 13 December 2006

Two 成人大片 graduates have been awarded Australia's most prestigious postgraduate scholarships to undertake further study at the world's best universities.

The provides the winners with financial support up to the value of $150,000 over three years. They are awarded for academic excellence, leadership and community service.

Of the eight Monash Award recipients for 2007 announced recently by at Government House, Canberra, two - Gemma Sharp and Owen Siggs - are graduates of the 成人大片.

Gemma, 22, will use her Monash Award to study for a PhD at the in the UK. Gemma has a passion for breast cancer research - her project aims to identify genes as prognostic markers for detecting, monitoring and treating breast cancer.

Gemma has a Bachelor of (Molecular Biology), a Bachelor of Science (First Class Honours) - which earned her a University Medal - and a Diploma in Languages (Japanese) from the 成人大片.

"I am so thrilled and honoured to have won such a prestigious award," Gemma says.

"I started investigating breast cancer as an Honours student at the 成人大片 in 2005, and this year I had the opportunity to combine my Japanese language skills and breast cancer research skills as a Research Assistant at in Japan. (Meiji University is a sister university of the 成人大片.)

"In the future, I would like to establish an international research team focusing on designing novel breast cancer treatments which links all three of the countries I will have worked in: Australia, Japan and the UK.

"Breast cancer is the primary cause of cancer-related death in Australian women and I hope my research will help ameliorate this problem," she says.

Owen Siggs, 23, has a Bachelor of (Molecular Biology) and Diploma of Languages (German) from the 成人大片 and a Bachelor of Science (Honours) from the .

Since graduation, he has worked as a Research Assistant at the , Canberra, and more recently at the , Melbourne.

Owen's ambition is to lead Australian research into the prevention and treatment of genetic disease. To that end, he will use his Monash Award to pursue a joint PhD/DPhil at in the United States and the in the UK.

"The greatest attraction of this award was the freedom to use it at the best institutions in our chosen fields. It's now our responsibility to use this experience to benefit our nation," Owen says.

"Our DNA is like a 30,000-page instruction manual for our body. Much of what distinguishes us as individuals is determined by subtle differences in this 'manual', including our susceptibility to diseases such as cancer, autoimmunity, obesity and infection. As we increase our understanding of these differences, and the 'pages' of DNA they affect, we can improve our management of disease," he says.

The award winners were selected from up to 150 applicants nationally. In addition to the scholarship funding, the also helps award winners to develop global networks for their future leadership roles.

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