2005 Young Tall Poppy Science Award Recipient

Dr Katharina Gaus
Centre for Vascular Research, School of Medical Sciences, University of New South Wales

Each living cell in our body senses and communicates with its surrounding world using its surface plasma membrane which separates the cell from its environment. Dr Katharina Gaus is studying cellular membrane organisation in signal transduction processes with the aim of better understanding of how cells communicate, particularly in heart disease.

A better understanding of how cells communicate and how cholesterol levels influence this communication may provide an early warning, or target for treatment, of heart disease. “Too much cholesterol can undermine the communication centres on the cells and threaten the way cells communicate,” she says. “Such damage happens long before our arteries are clogged up, so monitoring the state of cell communication could give us an early clue into the health of our cells and our hearts.” Katharina is studying the process and structures involved in cell communication using a new microscopy technique that looks at the lipid structures on cell membranes to identify and monitor any changes to their structure.
  
Katharina has been awarded an Australian Research Council Post-doctoral Fellowship at the Centre for Vascular Research at UNSW and most recently, an Alexander-von-Humboldt Research Fellowship to spend six months at the Max Planck Institute for Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics in Dresden, Germany. Currently a lecturer at UNSW and an RD Wright Fellow, Katharine has received $1.7 million in competitive grant and fellowship funding in Australia.

Katharina studied physics in Heidelberg, Germany before achieving her MPhil and a PhD at the Institute of Biotechnology, University of Cambridge. She was awarded a BASF scholarship from the German National Scholarship Foundation for post-doctoral research, which brought her to the Heart Research Institute in Sydney. Her major work to date, which has been cited 30 times, details her novel microscopy approach to visualize membrane structure in live cells. Her work has appeared in many high-profile publications including the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science (USA 2003), the Journal of Cell Biology, FASEB Journal and the Journal of Biological Chemistry. Katharina was selected as a ‘Fresh Scientist' and organised NSW Medical Research Week 2005.

Katharina received a Young Tall Poppy Science Award in 2005.