This year, the Margaret di Menna Prize for the Research Paper of the Year by a Postgraduate Student has been jointly awarded to two former postgraduate students, Dr Ron Dy and Dr Chris Greening.
Both were principal authors of papers that equally impressed the judging panel, with the $500 prize being divided between them. The previously unnamed prize has just this year been named in recognition of the late Margaret di Menna - an influential academic, the University's first female PhD graduate and the author of the University's first PhD thesis on a microbiological topic.
Ron Dy (PhD, Fineran Lab)
Paper: A widespread bacteriophage abortive infection system functions through a Type IV toxin–antitoxin mechanism. Ron L. Dy, Rita Przybilski, Koen Semeijn, George P.C. Salmond and Peter C. Fineran (2014). Nucleic Acids Research, 2014, Vol. 42, No. 7
Chris Greening (PhD, Cook Lab)
Paper: Greening C, Berney M, Hards K, Cook GM*, Conrad R* (2014). A soil actinobacterium scavenges atmospheric H2 using two oxygen-dependent, membrane-associated [NiFe]-hydrogenases. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA, 111, 4257-4261.
