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Embargo: 10.30 am Wednesday 8 June 2005
Star recruit takes on a new challenge
Embargo and launch: 10.30 am
Wednesday 8 June:
30 Flemington Road, Parkville, beta sp and stills available
Solar panels you can paint on the wall
– that’s one of the dreams of one of the Bio21 Institute’s star recruits,
organic chemist Prof Andrew Holmes.
“Andrew Holmes was part of a Cambridge
team that have already invented and commercialised a new kind of low cost
computer display. Now they plan to apply the same ideas to create low cost
plastic solar panels,” said Prof Dick Wettenhall, director of the Bio21
Institute speaking at the opening of the University of Melbourne’s new $100
million Institute.
Prof Holmes returned to Melbourne from the
UK in October 2004, attracted by a package of Federal and State funding
including a Federation Fellowship, a VESKI Fellowship, and a custom-designed
laboratory at the Bio21 Institute.
“But what attracted me most,” he said,
“was the opportunity to combine my chemistry knowledge and skills to biological
issues, and the opportunity to work on new technology for solar cells –
desperately needed if Australia is going to meet its long term needs for
sustainable power generation.”
In the early 1980s, Prof Holmes' team at
Cambridge University was working on ways to make the active ingredients of the
venom of the South American poison arrow frog. Serendipitously they made a
strange new plastic which glowed green if an electrical current passed through
it.
The end result was a new kind of
computer screen and a company – the NASDAQ-listed Cambridge Display Technology.
Now in Melbourne, Prof Holmes is
taking the next step – turning light emitting plastics into light absorbing
plastics. “I believe these plastics could be used to create low cost solar
panels. They won’t be as efficient as silicon-based panels, - an area where
Australia also leads. But their low cost will allow them to be used where
silicon panels are too expensive.”
Prof Holmes is working with a coalition of
organisations including: CSIRO Molecular Science and the CRC for Polymers
Prof Holmes regards himself as a molecule
maker, “But we make molecules only if we can do something with them. Do they
allow us to probe a biological system or develop a smart material with
industrial applications? The challenge is to build bridges between chemistry and
biology.”
He is already talking to Bio21
researchers leaders such as Assoc Prof Philip Batterham, who is investigating the
genetic basis of resistance and behaviour in insects, and Assoc Prof Malcolm
McConville, who is studying the molecular activation of diseases such as
leishmaniasis and tuberculosis.
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In the early 1980s, Australian organic chemist Prof
Andrew Holmes and his group at Cambridge University were working on ways of
making the active molecule of the venom of the South American poison arrow frog.
One day, in the course of their studies, they produced an intermediate molecule
that did a very strange thing—it joined together spontaneously into a long chain
known as a polymer, a plastic.
"Normally", says Prof Holmes, "this sticky
mess would have gone straight into the laboratory rubbish." But, quite by chance,
he happened to talk about his experience in the tearoom with a colleague from
outside his field, a distinguished professor of physical chemistry. You ought to
follow that polymer up, his colleague said. Those sorts of compounds have
interesting properties to do with light.
That comment was the beginning of a
trial which led to the establishment of a new company, and taught Prof Holmes that
“collaboration at the interfaces of disciplines is the future of science”. The
opportunity to become involved in more such projects has brought him, and his
research group, from Cambridge to Melbourne to work at the new A$100 million Bio21
Molecular Science and Biotechnology Institute.
“The Bio21 Institute is a centre of excellence
which brings together experts in all the biological and molecular sciences,” he
says. “It will allow me and my research group to probe the interface of
chemistry with materials science and with biology.”
When Prof Holmes followed the advice of
his tearoom colleague in Cambridge and applied for funding to do further work on
his unusual polymer, he received a grant from the British Technology Group. At
the time the program director suggested he talk with a physicist, Dr Richard
Friend, who had become interested in the emerging field of the electrical
properties of plastics.
In the first ever collaboration
between physics and chemistry at Cambridge, Prof Holmes and Dr Friend set to work. It
soon became evident that another similar compound was of far greater interest
than Assoc Prof Holmes’ initial polymer. But the real breakthrough came one day as one of
the group was testing the capacity of this new plastic to conduct electricity.
When he put an electric current across a thin film, the polymer began to glow
green.
That light-emitting plastic became
the basis of NASDAQ-listed company Cambridge Display Technology, which now
employs more than 130 people. The company has developed durable forms of the
plastic which can emit light in many different colours, and can be used to make
large, energy efficient, flat panel displays which are viewable from almost any
angle in broad daylight.
The Japanese consumer electronics
company, Seiko-Epson has already developed a way of using inkjet technology to
print these light-emitting plastics onto screens. Besides TV and computer
screens, the light-emitting plastics are already being used in displays on
electronic devices, and in advertising. They could also become the basis for
portable “roll-up” displays, Prof Holmes says.
In search of further collaborative
work at the interface with biology, Holmes began working with researchers at the
Babraham Institute near Cambridge on inositol phosphates, molecules within cells
which control the responses to external stimuli. They activate the proteins
involved in such key activities as cell division, communication and apoptosis or
programmed cell death. So they are significant players in diseases such as
cancer, diabetes and Alzheimer’s.
The researchers have been able to
develop compounds to mimic these natural signalling molecules. And, by attaching
these molecules to tiny plastic beads, the team has been able to “fish” for the
intracellular molecules with which they interact, and thus to study how controls
function at the molecular level.
Prof Holmes says he has come to
the Bio21 Institute with
an open mind as to what to work on. “There are world class researchers in the
biosciences in this area. I want to see what they think.” He is already talking
to Bio21 Institute colleagues such as Assoc Prof Philip Batterham, who is investigating the
genetic basis of resistance and behaviour in insects, and Assoc Prof Malcolm
McConville, who is studying the molecular activation of diseases such as
Leishmania and tuberculosis.
Not that he is devoid of ideas of his
own. All his projects, however, have to pass one acid test—they need to produce
a useful product. “We make molecules only if we can do something with them. Do
they allow us to probe a biological system or develop a smart material with
industrial applications?”
For instance, Prof Holmes wants to
continue working on the electronic activity of plastics. “That story is far from
over. It’s just at the beginning.” In particular, he is interested in the
application of plastics to generating solar energy.
The argument is simple. If you can
pump electricity into plastics and stimulate them to emit light, what about
reversing the process—pumping light into receptive plastics and producing
electricity? “It’s not as simple as that, but it does show potential," Assoc
Prof Holmes says.
The research group already has
developed such light-absorbing plastics and made solar cells, which can provide
a low voltage power source. Even if inefficient, an inexpensive version of such
cells could be significant, because the plastics can be used to coat all sorts
of surfaces, such as walls or the casing of electronic devices, providing useful
back-up power.
From their earlier work, Assoc Prof Holmes and
his team can bring both experience and useful technology to any collaboration.
For instance, they have been studying the potential application of supercritical
carbon dioxide to biotechnology.
At high pressure above 31
°C,
carbon dioxide behaves as a gas-like liquid and can be used as a solvent. There
are several advantages in doing so. For instance, it is non-toxic. Substances
can be brought out of solution instantaneously, often in a useful powder form,
simply by releasing the pressure—and the solvent itself disappears into the
atmosphere. There are also reactions it is difficult to pursue or control any
other way.
In fact, Assoc Prof Holmes considers
supercritical carbon dioxide so useful he is working on a whole production
system which employs it. “We have made polymers in CO2 and we have
made small molecules in CO2 , and polymer supports which could
eventually become new methods for separating materials.
“So our dream is that we could have
an integrated process. We could flow the reactants in one end of this massive
support. The chemistry would happen on the support at the beginning. The second
phase would be separation, and the final phase would be precipitation, and
control of the form of the product. We’ve filed a lot of patents in that area.”
As someone who is sold on
collaboration as the way of the future for research, Prof Holmes is also well aware
of the challenges. “One pre-condition is a real will to collaborate, and that
means making sacrifices.” He says there is no room for prima donnas,
people who want to take the credit for everything and be principal author on
scientific papers all the time. “You must passionately believe that there is
better value in working together than in individual rewards.”
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Images
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Prof. Andrew Holmes (left) and Dr Scott Watkins
(right)
demonstrate the use of the Metal Evaporator to student Melanie Tsang
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Chemical Distillation Apparatus |
Chemistry Apparatus |
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THE
BIO21 INSTITUTE: OPENING CEREMONY
