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UNSW School of Aviation hangar at Bankstown Airport, with some of the school's training aircraft

The Faculty of Science is a constituent body of the University of New South Wales (UNSW), Australia. It is UNSW's second largest Faculty (after Engineering). It has over 400 academic staff and over 700 research staff and students.

The Faculty consists of eight Schools:

  • School of Aviation[1]
  • School of Biological, Earth and Environmental Sciences[2]
  • School of Biotechnology and Biomolecular Sciences[3]
  • School of Chemistry[4]
  • School of Materials Science and Engineering[5]
  • School of Mathematics and Statistics[6]
  • School of Physics[7]
  • School of Psychology[8]

Its other resources include primary partnership in the UNSW Analytical Centre (see below), field research stations at Cowan, Smiths Lake, Wellington and Fowlers Gap, and it is a partner in the Sydney Institute of Marine Science, located on Sydney Harbour at Chowder Bay. The Faculty is the primary administrative base for the Institute of Environmental Studies and a number of research centres, including: the Climate Change Research Centre; Evolution and Ecology Research Centre; Centre for Marine Bio-Innovation; Centre for Materials Research in Energy Conversion; the Clive and Vera Ramaciotti Centre for Gene Function Analysis; Injury Risk Management Research Centre (IRMRC); and the Centre for Groundwater Research (jointly with Faculty of Engineering). It is also associated with national Co-operative Research Centres (CRCs)in Environmental Biotechnology; Vision; Spatial Information Systems and Bushfire. It is also part of Australian Research Council Centres of Excellence for Mathematical and Statistical Modelling of Complex Systems; Quantum Computer Technology (CQCT); Design in Light Metals; and Functional Nanomaterials. As well, it is part of the National Cooperative Research Infrastructure Scheme and the National Health and Medical Research Council's program in Post-traumatic Mental Health.[9]

History

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A Faculty of Science was established as one of the first three faculties of the New South Wales University of Technology (later the University of New South Wales) at the university's Council meeting on 8 May 1950.[10] Teaching in the subjects of applied chemistry and chemical engineering had, however, commenced the previous year.[11]

The present Faculty structure represents the outcome of two major and several minor UNSW restructures since 1997, with the primary aim of operational simplification and administrative efficiency. Before 1997 science teaching and research at UNSW was spread across three Faculties: Science; Biological & Behavioural Science;[12] and Applied Science.[13] In 1997 the three Science faculties were disestablished and two new faculties were created - a Faculty of Science and Technology[14] and a Faculty of Life Sciences.[15] In 2001, a second major restructure amalgamated most of the science schools resident in these two Faculties into a single new Faculty of Science.[16][9] A 2009 review of research in the Faculty resulted in the closure of the School of Risk & Safety Sciences in 2010.[17][18]

Within the School of Physics, the Centre for Quantum Computer Technology has three major research laboratories at the University of New South Wales: the Atomic Fabrication Facility (AFF), the National Magnet Laboratory (NML) and the Semiconductor Nanofabrication Facility (SNF).[19] These all allow for nanoscale device fabrication and measurement.

Mark Wainwright Analytical Centre

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Adjacent to the Chemical Sciences building, (Applied Science), is the new Mark Wainwright Analytical Centre (MWAC)[20] designed by Francis-Jones Morehen Thorp,[21] the goal of which is to co-locate major research instrumentation in a single, purpose-built, high-grade facility for the university.

The Analytical Centre houses the most important major instruments used in the Faculties of Science, Medicine and Engineering for the study of the structure and composition of biological, chemical and physical materials and also includes preparation laboratories, smaller instruments and computing facilities. In addition, it provides the technical/professional support for the instruments. The building also houses new teaching and research laboratories for the School of Chemistry.

The Mark Wainwright Analytical Centre consolidates the management of resources to minimise unnecessary duplication, as well as providing the appropriate infrastructure to support the instruments and a world-class research environment within which the instrumentation can operate to specification.[22]

Additionally, the new Analytical Centre has recently received a $500,000 grant from the Magnowski Institute of Applied Science to use in further advances in the studies of applied science.

Systems Biology Initiative

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The New South Wales Systems Biology Initiative, directed by Marc Wilkins is a non-profit facility within the School of Biotechnology and Biomolecular Sciences at the University of New South Wales. Their focus is undertaking basic and applied research in the development and application of bioinformatics for genomics and proteomics.

Researchers at the facility include:

Methylation on the proteome of Saccharomyces cerevisiae

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Modifications generate conditional effects on proteins, whereby their covalent attachment to amino acids will cause perturbation of a particular protein resulting in an impact on the potential interactions of its newly modified form.[23] Methylation is one of the most recognised post-translational modifications in histones for chromatin structure and gene expression.[24] It is also one of many modifications found on the short N-terminal regions of histones, which assemble to form the histone code, which regulates chromatin assembly and epigenetic gene regulation.[25] Identification of methylation across the interactome is poorly documented. Researchers at the System Biology Initiative have been identifying techniques to identify novel methylated lysine and arginine residues via mass spectrometry[26] and peptide mass fingerprinting.[27] Currently researchers are in the process of utilising these techniques to identify novel methylated residues in the Saccharomyces cerevisiae interactome.

Separation and identification of protein complexes

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Large-scale analysis of protein complexes is an emerging difficulty as methods for the fractionation of protein complexes that are not compatible with downstream proteomic techniques. The Systems Biology Initiative is utilising the technique of blue native continuous elution electrophoresis (BN-CEE).[28] This method generates liquid-phase fractions of protein complexes. The resulting complexes can be further analysed by polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis and mass spectrometry. This will help identify the constituent proteins of many complexes. Currently researchers are employing this technique on the Saccharomyces cerevisiae cellular lysate.

Visualising proteins, complexes and interaction networks

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The integration of biological data, including protein structures, interactions etc. can be generated through automated technology. The importance of such data can often be lost without proper visualisation of the data. The Systems Biology Initiative is currently working on an adaptation of the Skyrails Visualisation System. This system, called the interactonium uses a virtual cell for the visualisation of the interaction network, protein complexes and protein 3-D structures of Saccharomyces cerevisiae.[29] The tool can display complex networks of up to 40 000 proteins or 6000 multiprotein complexes. The Interactorium permits multi-level viewing of the molecular biology of the cell. The Interactorium is available for download.[30]

References

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  1. ^ "Aviation | School of Aviation". www.aviation.unsw.edu.au.
  2. ^ "Home | School of Biological, Earth and Environmental Sciences". www.bees.unsw.edu.au.
  3. ^ "School of Biotechnology and Biomolecular Sciences | UNSW Sydney". www.babs.unsw.edu.au.
  4. ^ "UNSW Chemistry". www.chemistry.unsw.edu.au.
  5. ^ "School of Materials Science and Engineering". www.materials.unsw.edu.au.
  6. ^ "School of Mathematics and Statistics". www.maths.unsw.edu.au.
  7. ^ "School of Physics". www.physics.unsw.edu.au.
  8. ^ "UNSW Psychology". www.psy.unsw.edu.au.
  9. ^ a b Anon (2008). "UNSW Faculty of Science Research", 68pp. ISBN unknown.
  10. ^ "A28-Science1" (PDF). www.recordkeeping.unsw.edu.au.
  11. ^ O'Farrell, Patrick (1999). UNSW : a portrait ; the University of New South Wales ; 1949-1999. Sydney: UNSW Press. ISBN 0868404179.
  12. ^ "A32-FBioSci" (PDF). www.recordkeeping.unsw.edu.au.
  13. ^ "A31-AppliedSci" (PDF). www.recordkeeping.unsw.edu.au.
  14. ^ "A142-SciTech" (PDF). www.recordkeeping.unsw.edu.au.
  15. ^ "A147-LifeSc" (PDF). www.recordkeeping.unsw.edu.au.
  16. ^ "A244-Science2" (PDF). www.recordkeeping.unsw.edu.au.
  17. ^ "Online Archives Search | Records & Archives". www.recordkeeping.unsw.edu.au.
  18. ^ "UNSW SRSS". www.safesci.unsw.edu.au.
  19. ^ "Centre for Quantum Computer Technology :: Experimental Facilities".
  20. ^ "Home | UNSW Mark Wainwright Analytical Centre". www.analytical.unsw.edu.au.
  21. ^ "Francis-Jones Morehen Thorp (FJMT) - Architecture, Interiors, Landscape, Urban Design". Archived from the original on 5 November 2013. Retrieved 5 November 2013.
  22. ^ "UNSW Analytical Centre".
  23. ^ Wilkins MR, Kummerfeld SK (May 2008). "Sticking together? Falling apart? Exploring the dynamics of the interactome". Trends in Biochemical Sciences. 33 (5): 195–200. doi:10.1016/j.tibs.2008.03.001. PMID 18424047.
  24. ^ Fischle W, Tseng BS, Dormann HL, et al. (December 2005). "Regulation of HP1-chromatin binding by histone H3 methylation and phosphorylation". Nature. 438 (7071): 1116–22. Bibcode:2005Natur.438.1116F. doi:10.1038/nature04219. PMID 16222246. S2CID 4401960.
  25. ^ Strahl BD, Allis CD (January 2000). "The language of covalent histone modifications". Nature. 403 (6765): 41–5. Bibcode:2000Natur.403...41S. doi:10.1038/47412. PMID 10638745. S2CID 4418993.
  26. ^ Couttas TA, Raftery MJ, Bernardini G, Wilkins MR (July 2008). "Immonium ion scanning for the discovery of post-translational modifications and its application to histones". Journal of Proteome Research. 7 (7): 2632–41. doi:10.1021/pr700644t. PMID 18517236.
  27. ^ Pang CN, Gasteiger E, Wilkins MR (2010). "Identification of arginine- and lysine-methylation in the proteome of Saccharomyces cerevisiae and its functional implications". BMC Genomics. 11: 92. doi:10.1186/1471-2164-11-92. PMC 2830191. PMID 20137074.
  28. ^ Huang KY, Filarsky M, Padula MP, Raftery MJ, Herbert BR, Wilkins MR (May 2009). "Micropreparative fractionation of the complexome by blue native continuous elution electrophoresis". Proteomics. 9 (9): 2494–502. doi:10.1002/pmic.200800525. PMID 19343713. S2CID 22256093.
  29. ^ Widjaja YY, Pang CN, Li SS, Wilkins MR, Lambert TD (December 2009). "The Interactorium: visualising proteins, complexes and interaction networks in a virtual 3-D cell". Proteomics. 9 (23): 5309–15. doi:10.1002/pmic.200900260. PMID 19798670. S2CID 42891761.
  30. ^ "Downloads: The Interactorium". New South Wales Systems Biology Initiative.
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