detect where trainee pilots look when using a flight simulator and compare this with the eye movements of an experienced
AUSTRALIA INNOVATES VOLUME 3
Welcome to our latest Australia InnovateS magazine A year ago, we launched this new initiative at IMEX Frankfurt to bring to light Australia’s strengths in science, business, the environment, design and innovation. I’m pleased to say that the magazine has been a success, providing readers with inspiring and engaging stories about some of our brightest people, who are breaking new ground across a variety of fields. Australia is a place where big landscapes inspire big thinking, and the stories we bring you in this edition of Australia Innovates will give you a deeper understanding of how our country delivers big ideas of benefit to the world. Read about Australian ecologist and ecotoxicologist Professor Emma Johnston for example, whose love of the ocean developed as a child living in Melbourne’s Port Phillip Bay. She is now Dean of Science and head of the Applied Marine and Estuarine Ecology Lab at the University of New South Wales, working to ensure the health of marine environments world-wide. We also bring you a story about Professor David Fidock, who is at the forefront of the work to eliminate malaria. 400,000 lives are lost each year to this terrible disease, and the race to find a vaccine is getting closer to the finish line thanks to Professor Fidock’s work to genetically modify malaria parasites. There’s more to discover inside on Australia’s innovative people, and the skills and expertise they hold. It’s one of the key reasons so many associations are choosing Australia for their events, so we hope you enjoy reading all the stories in this edition of Australia Innovates, and that we’ll get the chance to welcome you to our country soon so you can see for yourself why there’s nothing like Australia.
JOHN O’SULLIVAN MANAGING DIRECTOR, TOURISM AUSTRALIA
CONTENTS
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BUSINESS
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DESIGN & I N N O VAT I O N
Australian scientists are taking their expertise to the world stage, including Professor David Fidock of Columbia University, who’s working to eradicate malaria, and Australian biotechnology company Vaxine, which has teamed up with partners in the US to develop a vaccine that could revolutionise the treatment of Alzheimer’s disease and dementia.
IMAGES: TOP LEFT PROFESSOR DAVID FIDOCK AT THE ADVANCE GLOBAL AUSTRALIANS AWARDS. CREDIT: ADVANCE GLOBAL AUSTRALIANS AWARDS; TOP RIGHT: PROFESSOR DAVID FIDOCK WITH HIS ADVANCE GLOBAL AUSTRALIANS AWARD FOR LIFE SCIENCES. CREDIT: ADVANCE GLOBAL AUSTRALIANS; BOTTOM LEFT: NIKOLAI PETROVSKY. CREDIT: VAXINE; BOTTOM RIGHT: NIKOLAI PETROVSKY. CREDIT: VAXINE
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IMAGE: PROFESSOR DAVID FIDOCK. CREDIT: ADVANCE GLOBAL AUSTRALIANS
On the path to eliminating Malaria Malaria kills more than 400,000 people each year, many of them children in Sub-Saharan Africa. Australian scientist David Fidock, who works at Columbia University, has uncovered the genetic basis for drug resistance in deadly malaria parasites, and is working on new drugs aiding the global effort to eradicate malaria. Chloroquine was used to fight malaria shortly after World War II, becoming one of the most successful drugs ever deployed against an infectious disease.
In areas where malaria had nearly been eradicated, it re-emerged with deadly force. For decades, exactly how the parasite had acquired this resistance remained a mystery.
“It was the household Tylenol,” says Professor David Fidock, a molecular biologist and geneticist at Columbia University in New York. “It was present throughout all malariaendemic areas. Any initial symptoms of fever and that’s what you took, because it was presumed to be malaria.”
This changed in 1999 thanks to Fidock. The Australian scientist was working at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in Washington, in the lab of malaria researcher Thomas Wellems, who had evidence that a single mutant gene was to blame for the resistance.
At its peak use, an estimated 300 million doses were taken per year. This heavy usage saw the most deadly malaria parasite, Plasmodium falciparum, develop a resistance to chloroquine.
It was Fidock who correctly identified that gene, called PfCRT, which they described in the journal Molecular Cell. The discovery changed the course of malaria research and treatment strategies globally, enabling a simple molecular test to diagnose the extent of resistance.
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CHANGING THE COURSE OF MALARIA RESEARCH With resistance verified around the world, the once overused chloroquine was replaced with more effective antimalarial drugs. In the years since, the global research community has made significant progress battling malaria. Mortality rates dropped by 60 per cent between 2000 and 2015, resulting in an estimated 6.2 million averted deaths, according to the World Health Organization. But the toll is still frighteningly high: more than 400,000 people are killed each year, says Fidock, and more than 80 per cent are children under the age of five in Sub-Saharan Africa.
In the last few years, malaria parasites have also begun developing resistance to another front-line drug known as artemisinin. It was Fidock who, in 2015, provided definitive genetic evidence that mutations in the K13 gene drive this resistance.
bear fruit, given the complex biology of the malaria parasite. The parasite can change forms inside the body and enter different life stages as it moves from the liver to the bloodstream, evading detection.
them with combinations of drugs, Fidock says.
As with chloroquine, this discovery provides a molecular signature to identify where resistance has occurred, and to alter treatment strategies accordingly, he says.
The toll is still frighteningly high: more than 400,000 people are killed each year, says Fidock, and more than 80 per cent are children under the age of five in Sub-Saharan Africa.
THE HOLY GRAIL OF MALARIA RESEARCH
Fidock was recently honoured at the 2016 Advance Global Australian Awards, winning in the Life Sciences category for his significant contributions to malaria research. His overarching mission, Fidock says, is to help eradicate malaria globally, or at least “shrink the map” of affected areas. Doing so means trying to constantly outsmart these highly complex, ever-evolving parasites.
SEEING THE DISEASE IN THE FLESH Born at a NATO base in France, Fidock moved to Australia with his family at age seven. He completed a Bachelor of Mathematical Science at the University of Adelaide, where he focused on genetics. Compelled to address global health issues largely ignored by big pharmaceutical companies, Fidock returned to France in 1989 to undertake a PhD at the Institut Pasteur in Paris, where his work centred on malaria vaccines. It was a year later while on a research trip to western Kenya that he first witnessed the horrific impact of the disease.
Fidock thought he could make a bigger impact by applying his expertise in genetics to understand how drug resistance was evolving. As it turns out, he was right.
TESTING NEW DRUGS The breakthrough discovery of the PfCRT gene catapulted Fidock to a faculty position at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York, and later Columbia University. Now a Professor of Microbiology and Immunology, his lab of 16 researchers has published 160 papers and receives around US$1.5 million annually from the NIH, the US Department of Defense, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the Burroughs Wellcome Fund, and the Medicines for Malaria Venture in Geneva.
“You could see kids coming in who were already in a coma, and you knew that most of them wouldn’t make it to the next day,” Fidock told the Columbia Medicine magazine. “It was shocking and humbling to understand that for these people, malaria was still an ever-present part of life.”
The lab has helped pioneer the field of genome editing in malaria parasites, making it possible to quickly understand how resistance evolves and how specific drugs attack these organisms on a cellular and molecular level. The lab has also shown that some genetic mutations result in resistance to one drug, but make the parasite more susceptible to another.
After nine years, Fidock abandoned his search for a vaccine. He says it seemed unlikely to
If they can “lock parasites in these evolutionary dead ends”, they can eradicate
His lab also exposes parasites to drugs in the development pipeline, to assess how likely it is that a genetic resistance will evolve in the future – and how quickly.
Most antimalarial drugs target parasites that have invaded red blood cells, which is when the disease turns deadly. But Fidock wants to develop a new class of drug, like a malaria vaccine, which can detect the parasites earlier, before they are detectable in the liver – their first port of call in a human host. Inside liver cells, a form of the parasite rapidly produces up to 30,000 replicas over a sevenday period. It’s these offspring that will invade red blood cells and become transmissible. To reproduce on this scale, however, the parasites need energy scavenged from massive amounts of fatty acids. Fidock hopes to genetically engineer parasites that are less adept at gathering these fatty acids and load them into a vaccine. The modified parasites would get stuck inside the liver for longer periods, generating a more robust immune response from the host. “That’s the ultimate goal,” says Fidock, “to find a drug that not only cures the infection, but eliminates all forms of the parasite in the body. We want to stop it from progressing to the disease-causing stage.” First published on www.australiaunlimited.com Author: Myles Gough
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“A solution will ultimately save global health authorities trillions of dollars.”
A HISTORY OF BREAKTHROUGHS Petrovsky knows a thing or two about vaccines. With funding support from the US National Institutes of Health he has helped developed vaccines that fight common and exotic infections including influenza, hepatitis B, Japanese encephalitis, MERS, HIV and Ebola.
IMAGE: NIKOLAI PETROVSKY IN THE LAB. CREDIT: VAXINE
FINDING THE ELUSIVE ALZHEIMER’S CURE Australian biotechnology company Vaxine and its US partners are developing a vaccine that could revolutionise the treatment of dementia and Alzheimer’s, a disease with 7.5 million new sufferers around the world every year.
A breakthrough in the search for a cure for Alzheimer’s disease has captured world attention. With its partners at the Institute of Molecular Medicine, Vaxine’s solution is targeted at early intervention – vaccinating people before they develop an unmanageable amount of symptoms. The scientist leading the research is Nikolai Petrovsky, Professor of Endocrinology at Flinders University in Adelaide, South Australia, and Research Director of Vaxine. “The vaccine drives the immune system to make antibodies,” Professor Petrovsky explains. “The antibodies recognise abnormal brain proteins while ignoring normal proteins. They then ‘haul’ the abnormal proteins out of the brain and destroy them. 10
“The vaccine essentially teaches the immune system how to recognise abnormal proteins without damaging the normal proteins we need for brain function.” Petrovsky says the latest vaccine is more powerful and efficient than earlier generations of vaccines. “People had shown conceptually that this idea might work but they could never induce the body to make enough of the right antibodies. What we have now done is design a vaccine able to generate millions of antibodies so they can quickly find every abnormal protein forming in the brain and dispose of them.” Petrovsky believes a vaccine for Alzheimer’s disease and dementia could be available to the public within five to seven years.
“A US Government report predicts its health system will be crippled unless a solution to Alzheimer’s disease is found soon,” he says. “By 2025, the global cost of Alzheimer’s disease is estimated to be around US$2-3 trillion, so spending several billion dollars on Alzheimer’s research is a drop in the ocean compared to how much it will cost to deal with all these patients down the track.
What we have now done is design a vaccine able to generate millions of antibodies so they can quickly find every abnormal protein forming in the brain and dispose of them.”
“I’m a clinician first and foremost but my passion has always been to help more than my immediate patients,” Petrovsky says. “As a clinician, I believe we have an obligation not just to treat but to do research to improve disease understanding and develop new treatments.
“By 2025, the global cost of Alzheimer’s disease is estimated to be around US$2-3 trillion, so spending several billion dollars on Alzheimer’s research is a drop in the ocean compared to how much it will cost to deal with all these patients down the track. “The diabetes and endocrine space is my speciality but I run a large research group that has multiple focuses. I have a love of immunology. As a doctor, it is good to be able to administer treatments to reduce disease symptoms but it is even better if you can prevent it.” Incorporated in 2002, Vaxine evolved from earlier work on a sugar-based technology by Dr Peter Cooper, a retired scientist from the Australian National University. The company’s embryonic work focused on a diabetes vaccine, an extension of Petrovsky’s PhD research into the prevention of autoimmune (type 1) diabetes.
This sugar-based technology for enhancing vaccine effectiveness turned out to have broad applicability and attracted post 9/11 biodefense program funding from the US Government. More recently, Vaxine has extended these findings to other vaccine applications including cancer prevention (in collaboration with Dr Chris Weir at the University of Sydney) and a vaccine against Alzheimer’s disease (in partnership with the Institute for Molecular Medicine associated with the University of California, Irvine). Petrovsky has led Vaxine’s Alzheimer’s work for the past decade. Project partner IMM has been working on a treatment for at least two decades. Success is based around collective knowledge, according to Petrovsky. “It is not something you can get your head around in a day or two, and you need large collaborative teams to solve such complex problems,” he says. “Alzheimer’s is a big challenge for the world. It is primarily driven by the fact people are living longer. The older you are, the more likely you are to come down with Alzheimer’s but there may also be other lifestyle factors such as type 2 diabetes and vascular disease that contribute. It is a growing problem. “Australia, Europe and all developed countries are going to be faced with the same challenge. It is a desperate situation that needs an urgent solution. There currently is no cure, but that is the kind of challenge we like – the impossible ones.”
development program, and has begun a clinical trial of an avian influenza vaccine to protect against the new H7N9 strain causing periodic deaths in China. Petrovsky predicts that in the next 20 years we will see many vaccine breakthroughs for things we never imagined could be vaccinated against.
“Australia, Europe and all developed countries are going to be faced with the same challenge. It is a desperate situation that needs an urgent solution. There currently is no cure, but that is the kind of challenge we like – the impossible ones. “Already there are clinical trials testing vaccines against smoking and cocaine addiction, cancer and high blood pressure,” he says. “We are seeing an explosion of novel vaccine technologies allowing new approaches and new targets. This is a tremendously exciting time to be in vaccine research.” First published on www.australiaunlimited.com Author: Matthew Hall
VACCINES OF THE FUTURE Vaxine was a finalist in the 2016 Australian Export Awards, recognised for its broad work in the biotechnology field. It was the first company in the world to bring a swine flu vaccine to human trial stage after the 2009 swine flu pandemic. It is collaborating with the US Army to develop an Ebola vaccine. Vaxine also recently initiated a Zika vaccine 11
Innovation and a keen entrepreneurial spirit combine in Australia’s most cutting-edge businesses. From the eye-tracking technology of Seeing Machines that is taking the automotive industry by storm to the nanotechnology used by luxury watchmaker
Bausele, find out how Australian organisations are breaking new ground and making their mark on the world.
IMAGES: TOP LEFT THE TERRA AUSTRALIS WATCH THAT WAS FEATURED AT BASELWORLD IN SWITZERLAND. CREDIT: BAUSELE; TOP RIGHT: CHRISTOPHE HOPPE (CENTRE) WITH THE FLINDERS UNIVERSITY RESEARCH TEAM IN THEIR LAB IN ADELAIDE. L-R PROF. DAVID LEWIS, DR JON CAMPBELL, AND DR ANDREW BLOCK. CREDIT: FLINDERS UNIVERSITY; BOTTOM LEFT: GUARDIAN SYSTEM IN TRUCK CAB TO DETECT FATIGUE AND DISTRACTION. CREDIT: SEEING MACHINES; BOTTOM RIGHT: TIM EDWARDS, CHIEF TECHNOLOGY OFFICER OF SEEING MACHINES, CREDIT: SEEING MACHINES.
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In the past year, trucks using Seeing Machines’ Guardian system have travelled 300 million kilometres without a single fatigue-related accident. In that time, the company has woken up drivers from microsleeps in moving vehicles 453,228 times.
IMAGE: AUTOMOTIVE EYE TRACKING TECHNOLOGY BEING USED IN A CAR. CREDIT: SEEING MACHINES
Seeing machines making driving safer Australian company Seeing Machines uses eye tracking technology to detect when a driver is drowsy or distracted, saving lives on the road, in mines and on railways. From 2017, its driver safety systems will be used to augment self-driving vehicle technology.
Fatigue is a major killer on the roads, with one in six fatal accidents involving a drowsy driver. The problem is particularly acute in the trucking industry, where drivers travel long distances for long periods. An Australian company is dramatically reducing the number of fatal vehicle accidents with its eye tracking technology, which can detect, in real time, when a driver is drowsy or distracted. Seeing Machines’ technology uses two cameras, placed in the cabin of a truck, plane or train, which are pointed at the driver or pilot. The cameras measure the driver’s head pose and orientation, eyelid closures, pupil diameter and the direction of their gaze. This information is analysed to determine how 14
distracted the driver is – whether they are alert, drowsy or inattentive. If a truck driver, for instance, is found to be drowsy or distracted, the driver’s seat vibrates and an alarm sounds to wake them up, with the warnings increasing in stridency if they are ignored. Seeing Machines’ SafeGuard Centre in Tucson, Arizona is also alerted. If required, the centre contacts the driver and tells them to pull over. In the past year, trucks using Seeing Machines’ Guardian system have travelled 300 million kilometres without a single fatigue-related accident. In that time, the company has woken up drivers from micro-sleeps in moving vehicles 453,228 times. Guardian can be found in trucks in Europe,
North and South America, Asia and the Middle East, and in more than 4,000 off-road mining vehicles. “The technological goal is to understand what is going on in the mind of a person,” says Timothy Edwards, co-founder and Chief Technology Officer of Seeing Machines. “So, a machine can derive a high-level understanding of somebody’s intent, emotional state, level of fatigue or distraction.”
SAVING LIVES Most of Seeing Machines’ competitors assume this problem can be solved with a webcam and algorithms, but it’s also a problem of lighting and physics – how does the camera see through sunglasses or in poor lighting, for instance?
“Imagine the difference between the eyes of someone that is squinting, looking into the sun as they drive, and someone with their eyes closed – the difference is about one millimetre of eyelid opening,” says Edwards. “We have to detect this difference reliably enough to tell the vehicle that the driver cannot see the road and to engage safety procedures or not. It’s not something you want to get wrong. “Improving road safety for drivers has enormous benefits for society,” he adds, noting that road deaths are the major killer in the developed world. “People are basically being lulled into a sense of security when they’re driving their fantastic ‘lounge on wheels’. It’s actually one of the most dangerous things you can do in your everyday life.” One of the major applications of the technology will be in what are known as conditionally autonomous vehicles – cars that can drive themselves but can also be operated by the driver. For the next 10 or 15 years, so-called driverless cars still need a qualified driver to be behind the wheel and pay attention to the road, ready to take over the driving if need be. Once the car becomes aware the ‘driver’ isn’t paying attention, it gently nudges the driver with seat vibrations or visual flashing, and escalates the alerts if they’re being ignored.
Seeing Machines is in talks with vehicle manufacturers in Japan, Germany and the US about installing its system in their self-drive cars. Consumers can expect to start buying vehicles with its safety systems integrated from 2017.
IMPROVING INTERACTIONS BETWEEN HUMANS AND MACHINES Edwards studied systems engineering at the Australian National University (ANU) in Canberra from 1995. After graduating, he worked at CEA Technologies, an Australian company that is a world leader in radar technology. He then joined Klein Bottlers where he helped develop software for the realistic creation and animation of water/ liquid surfaces. After travelling overseas, he returned to Australia not knowing what he wanted to do, except to “find the most interesting group of people … and spend time with them”. This led him to join the Robotics Systems Laboratory at ANU. Edwards and Seeing Machines’ three other co-founders, Alex Zelinsky, Jochen Heinzmann and Sebastian Rougeaux, started working on eye tracking technology and began talks with Volvo research and development in Sweden. It got them thinking that the first mass-market robots were likely to be in the most evolved piece of machinery that people already buy – cars. Seeing Machines was founded in 2000 to commercialise the technology. It started selling eye tracking research equipment to car companies, before using the technology to develop its own safety equipment. The organisation moved into the mining sector, applying its alertness detection systems to mining vehicles. Edwards says this was a chance to finally use the technology to
save lives. It was a commercial breakthrough for Seeing Machines. It eventually exited the sector, licensing its intellectual property to Caterpillar, which is installing the technology in its vehicles. Seeing Machines, which was a finalist in the 2016 Australian Export Awards, is now working with two original equipment manufacturers in the aircraft industry and two major airlines on applying its technology to pilot monitoring and training. The company’s eye monitoring technology will be used to detect where trainee pilots look when using a flight simulator and compare this with the eye movements of an experienced pilot. This will tell if the trainees are making ‘rookie errors’ or are becoming overwhelmed or confused. The trainees would then be given feedback on any errors.
“Improving road safety for drivers has enormous benefits for society,” he adds, noting that road deaths are the major killer in the developed world. “People are basically being lulled into a sense of security when they’re driving their fantastic ‘lounge on wheels’. It’s actually one of the most dangerous things you can do in your everyday life.” Seeing Machines’ eye tracking technology is now so reliable a number of new applications have also opened up in education and health. “It’s going to hopefully make society a little safer and smarter,” Edwards says. First published on www.australiaunlimited.com Author: Christopher Niesche 15
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IMAGE: DR JON CAMPBELL FROM FLINDERS UNIVERSITY WORKING IN THE CENTRE FOR NANOSCALE SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY. CREDIT: FLINDERS UNIVERSITY, SUPPLIED BY CHRISTOPHE HOPPE.
NANOTECHNOLOGY AND LUXURY WATCHES: AN INNOVATIVE AUSTRALIAN PARTNERSHIP In 2015, Bausele became the first Australian luxury watch brand to be invited to Baselworld in Switzerland – the world’s largest and most prestigious luxury watch and jewellery expo. Its success is, in part, thanks to a partnership with nanotechnologists at Flinders University and a unique new material called Bauselite. Founded by Swiss-born Sydneysider Christophe Hoppe, Bausele Australia bills itself as the first “Swiss-made, Australian-designed” watch company. The name is an acronym for Beyond Australian Elements. Each watch has part of the Australian landscape embedded in its crown, or manual winding mechanism, such as red earth from the outback, beach sand or bits of opal. But what makes the luxury watches unique is an innovative material called Bauselite, developed in partnership with Flinders University’s Centre of NanoScale Science and Technology in Adelaide. An advanced ceramic nanotechnology, Bauselite is featured in Bausele’s Terra Australis watch, enabling 16
design elements not found in its competitors’ watches.
NANOCONNECT PROGRAM FOSTERS INDUSTRY PARTNERSHIP Flinders University coordinates NanoConnect, a collaborative research program supported by the South Australian Government, which provides a low-risk pathway for companies to access university equipment and expertise. It was through this program that Hoppe met nanotechnologist Professor David Lewis, and his colleagues Dr Jonathan Campbell and Dr Andrew Block. “There were a lot of high IQs around that table, except for me,” jokes Hoppe about their first meeting.
After some preliminary discussions, the Flinders team set about researching the luxury watch industry and identified several areas for innovation. The one they focused on with Hoppe was around the manufacture of casings.
Flinders University coordinates NanoConnect, a collaborative research program supported by the South Australian Government, which provides a low-risk pathway for companies to access university equipment and expertise.
Apart from the face, the case is the most prominent feature on a watch head. It needs to be visually appealing but also lightweight and strong, says Hoppe, who is also Bausele’s chief designer.
The new material allows holes to be drilled more precisely, which is an important feature in watchmaking. “It means we can make bolder, more adventurous designs, which can give us a competitive advantage,” Hoppe says.
The researchers suggested ceramics might be suitable. Conventional ceramics require casting, where a powder slurry is injected into a mould and heated in an oven. The process is suitable for high-volume manufacturing, but the end product is often hampered by small imperfections or deformities. This can cause components to break, resulting in wasted material, time and money. It can also make the material incompatible with complex designs, such as those featured in the Terra Australis.
Bauselite can also be tailored to meet specific colour, shape and texture requirements. “This is a major selling point,” Hoppe says. “Watch cases usually have a shiny, stainless steel–like finish, but the Bauselite looks like a dark textured rock.” Bauselite made its luxury watch debut in Bausele’s Terra Australis range. The ceramic nanotechnology and the watch captured the attention of several established brands when it was featured at Baselworld.
After some preliminary discussions, the Flinders team set about researching the luxury watch industry and identified several areas for innovation. The one they focused on with Hoppe was around the manufacture of casings.
ADVANCED MANUFACTURING HUB IN AUSTRALIA
NEW MATERIAL OFFERS COMPETITIVE EDGE
“Bauselite is strong, very light and, because of the way it is made, avoids many of the traps common with conventional ceramics,” explains Professor Lewis.
Using a new technique, the Flinders team invented a unique, lightweight ceramiclike material that can be produced in small batches via a non-casting process, which helps eliminate defects found in conventional ceramics. They named the high-performance material Bauselite. “Bauselite is strong, very light and, because of the way it is made, avoids many of the traps common with conventional ceramics,” explains Professor Lewis.
Hoppe and the Flinders University team are currently working on the development of new materials and features. Together they have established a joint venture company called Australian Advanced Manufacturing to manufacture Bauselite. A range of other precision watch components could be in the pipeline.
watches onshore. “I’ve seen what Europe is good at when it comes to creating luxury goods, and what makes it really special is when people control the whole process from beginning to end,” says Hoppe. “This is what we want to do. We’ll start with one component now, but we’ll begin to manufacture others.”
The ceramic nanotechnology and the watch captured the attention of several established brands when it was featured at Baselworld. He hopes the hub will be a place where students can develop similar, highperformance materials that could find applications across a range of industries, from aerospace to medicine, for bone and joint reconstructions. First published on www.australiaunlimited.com Author: Myles Gough
The team hopes to become a ‘centre of excellence’ for watchmaking in Australia, supplying components to international luxury watchmaking brands. But the priority is for the advanced manufacturing hub to begin making Bausele 17
From a Western Australian startup that’s providing sustainable housing for communities in need to a Sydney professor who’s protecting vulnerable underwater worlds, Australia’s sharpest minds are collaborating, creating and communicating to ensure the health of our planet and the population for generations to come.
IMAGES: TOP LEFT: NEVHOUSE VANUATU CREDIT TED GRAMBEAU PHOTOGRAPHY/NEVHOUSE; TOP RIGHT: NEV HYMAN WITH VILLAGE CHILDREN IN VANUATU CREDIT TED GRAMBEAU PHOTOGRAPHY/NEV HOUSE; BOTTOM LEFT: PROFESSOR EMMA JOHNSTON AT WORK. CREDIT: UNSW SYDNEY; BOTTOM RIGHT: WEEDY SEADRAGON, SYDNEY HARBOUR CREDIT: ERIK SCHLOGL
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climatic, lifestyle, cultural and spiritual needs of the community.
PLASTIC WASTE IN A PRISTINE PLACE Another pillar of the Nevhouse business is cleaning up plastic pollution. Hyman became aware of the problem of marine debris while travelling in the South Pacific on a surfing trip in the early 2000s. “I was shocked at the amount of plastic that was washing up on pristine beaches on this remote island,” he says.
IMAGE: NEV HYMAN WITH VILLAGE ELDER IN VANUATU CREDIT: TED GRAMBEAU, PHOTOGRAPHY/NEV HOUSE
AUSTRALIAN SURFING ICON DELIVERS SUSTAINABLE HOUSES FOR COMMUNITIES IN NEED From surfboards to sustainable shelters, Nev Hyman’s latest startup is providing safe, affordable housing to some of the world’s most vulnerable people. His low-cost houses are cyclone-proof, built almost exclusively from recycled plastic and waste materials, and can be deployed to remote communities in a matter of weeks. Growing up in Western Australia, Nev Hyman remembers riding the beautiful, big ocean swells that formed near the coastal town of Margaret River. Surfing was more than a passion for Hyman; it was the catalyst for becoming an entrepreneur. At age 13, he was shaping boards for friends inside his dad’s garage. In 1975, after finishing high school, he opened his first business: Odyssey Surfboards. Four decades later, Hyman has cemented his reputation as one of the top surfboard designers internationally. One of his startups, Firewire Surfboards, is part-owned by surfing legend Kelly Slater.
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FROM SURFBOARDS TO SAFE HOUSES Today, Hyman is attempting to conquer something far more daunting than waves. “Our motto is housing humanity,” Hyman says of his latest venture, Nevhouse. The United Nations estimates that more than one billion people globally have inadequate shelter. It’s a problem that could intensify as more people are displaced from their homes and communities by conflicts, natural disasters and climate change. Nevhouse designs and develops low-cost, prefabricated homes from recycled plastics and other sustainable materials. It works with aid agencies, governments, charities and the private sector to rapidly deploy these homes
to communities around the world that need support and as part of post-disaster relief. “Nevhouse is an economic, social and environmental solution to the need for affordable housing globally,” Hyman says. Each structure comes flat-packed and is delivered to the site where it can be built in two to four days by local workers and villagers trained in the assembly process. The permanent dwellings have solar power, sanitation, and technology for providing clean drinking and washing water. They require little if any maintenance over their multigeneration lifespan. Perhaps most important is the design process itself. Nevhouse engineers and architects work with local engineers and architects to develop tailored solutions meeting the geographic,
A study published in Science magazine in 2015 suggests that 8 million metric tonnes of plastic entered the world’s oceans in 2010. A separate study by the United Nations Environment Programme in 2014 estimated the financial damage to marine ecosystems caused by plastic waste to be around US$13 billion annually. Hyman wanted to help address this problem, and in 2004 invested in a recycling company that turned mixed plastic into wood replacement products. By 2012, the company had evolved into Nevhouse. Forty to 50 per cent of Nevhouse’s current structures – mainly the wall panelling components – are made from recycled plastic. This amounts to between two and three tonnes of plastic waste per structure, says Hyman.
Nevhouse structures also feature sustainable Australian timbers and steel roofs. Galvanised iron screw piles used for the foundation eliminate the need for concrete, further reducing the carbon footprint and cost.
CYCLONE PAM CHANGES THE PLAN Hyman was set to begin deploying his sustainable shelters in Papua New Guinea, but these plans changed after Cyclone Pam smashed through Vanuatu in March 2015. The severe tropical cyclone devastated the Pacific Island nation, causing hundreds of millions of dollars in damage and leaving over 75,000 people homeless. Hyman flew to Vanuatu in the aftermath. He met a teacher who fled with his students from the local school building as it was torn apart by 300-kilometre-per-hour winds. They survived by taking refuge behind a six-metrewide banyan tree. “To see these people so vulnerable, with no shelter really rocked me,” says Hyman. In the wake of Cyclone Pam, Nevhouse delivered on its first major project: rebuilding the remote village of Enkatelei, on Vanuatu’s Tanna Island. The project was funded by a Hong Kong–based charitable organisation that focuses on post-disaster relief.
The company is working on ways to recycle more codes of plastic, and Hyman hopes the total amount of waste in future designs will exceed four tonnes per structure.
Over eight weeks, villagers assembled 14 Nevhouse structures, including classrooms, a medical clinic, accommodation for nurses and teachers, and other community buildings. Each structure was designed to withstand Category 5 cyclones, protecting villagers in the event of future storms.
At present, the panels are manufactured in China, but Hyman wants to shift this process to Australia, and possibly set up manufacturing hubs in the regions where Nevhouse is operating.
It’s the first time the subsistence farming village of 1,200 people has had electricity, and Hyman hopes the new medical clinic and classrooms will improve access to healthcare and education.
“The children ran into their new classrooms and cheered. They had desks, computers and all this stuff that they couldn’t believe existed,” he says.
LOOKING AHEAD TO A BRIGHTER FUTURE The cyclone-resistant shelters deployed in Vanuatu – which were designed by Sydneybased architect Ken McBryde – were honoured at the 2016 Australian Good Design Awards, winning the top prize for sustainability. Hyman hopes to continue helping communities in Vanuatu as the country rebuilds, but also has plans to deploy his flatpack homes elsewhere. Twelve countries have expressed interest, including Indonesia, Fiji, the Solomon Islands, Sri Lanka and Mexico. Indigenous communities and local councils in Australia have also expressed interest. The company deploys up to 40,000 structures per year, anywhere in the world, Hyman says. One challenge, however, is lowering the cost: Nevhouse structures currently range from A$10,000 to A$100,000, depending on the logistics of shipping materials to the building site. Hyman hopes future designs will come in at around A$7,000 per structure, enabling wider deployment across the world. A new partnership with Australian construction giant Brookfield Multiplex will help Nevhouse achieve these goals. For an Australian entrepreneur who has spent his life chasing the perfect wave, the next big adventure is just getting started. First published on www.australiaunlimited.com Author: Myles Gough
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ENVIRONMENT
ENVIRONMENT
“We’re publishable in the international scientific literature and we’re policy-relevant. That’s the ‘sweet spot’ where I really like to be,” says Johnston, claiming she’s always been interested in “useful research”. If that weren’t enough, the energetic marine scientist advises government through bodies such as the Marine Estate Expert Knowledge Panel, an independent arm of the New South Wales Marine Estate Authority. She is also the lead author of the ‘Coasts’ chapter of the five-yearly Australia State of the Environment report, funded by the Australia Government.
IMAGE: PROFESSOR EMMA JOHNSTON, CREDIT: UNSW SYDNEY
Topping off this impressive list of accomplishments, Johnston is a high-profile science communicator and broadcaster, familiar to viewers worldwide as a copresenter of the Foxtel/BBC television series Coast Australia.
PROFESSOR EMMA JOHNSTON: UNDERWATER TRAILBLAZER Emma Johnston’s passion and laboratory are Sydney Harbour and the coastal waters and estuaries of Australia’s ‘marine estate’. The multi-award-winning scientist and communicator uses her brain, collaboration and cutting edge tools to ensure vulnerable underwater worlds remain healthy for generations to come. Professor Emma Johnston is on a mission: to use the tools of science and communication to help protect the underwater world she loves. It’s partly due to the fact she grew up next to Melbourne’s Port Phillip Bay. “We swam and snorkelled and sailed,” says Johnston, who was a middle child between two brothers. One brother became a landscape architect and the other a musician – she was the only sibling to turn the family passions into a professional career. At age 42, Johnston is a pace-setting ecologist and ecotoxicologist at the University of New South Wales. There she heads the Applied Marine and Estuarine Ecology Lab, training tomorrow’s marine scientists and collaborating with today’s experts. She 22
was the inaugural Director of the multidisciplinary, multi-institutional Sydney Harbour Research Program (SHRP) at the Sydney Institute of Marine Science.
globally,” she says proudly. There are 20 city partners, from Jakarta and San Francisco to Shanghai and Rio de Janeiro.
Johnston is passionate about Sydney Harbour because, despite being surrounded by almost 5 million people, it’s a global hotspot for marine and estuarine diversity. “It hosts almost every type of habitat that exists in the ocean,” she explains.
Johnston is passionate about Sydney Harbour because, despite being surrounded by almost 5 million people, it’s a global hotspot for marine and estuarine diversity. “It hosts almost every type of habitat that exists in the ocean,” she explains.
In November 2014, Johnston and her SHRP colleagues launched the World Harbour Project. “The new project arose out of a desire to share techniques and learnings about multiple-use harbours that are heavily impacted but also highly valued, so the findings and priorities are being rolled out
“I do need eight hours’ sleep,” Johnston admits, shrugging off the suggestion that she is a ‘short-sleeper’ like British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. “I can get by on seven hours for a few days but then I crash,” she laughs, before answering the phone.
“Women are socially and culturally engendered to think of maths and physics as difficult – that we don’t have a natural facility with them,” says Johnston. “It’s not true. What the community believes the child believes, and it affects a child’s choices and performance.” “That was a call from The Discovery Channel,” explains Johnston. “They’re filming six episodes on Sydney Harbour, to air next year.
I’m hoping to get some underwater research into the program, not just cruises and New Year’s Eve.”
She acknowledges that it will take effort and a “massive cultural shift” to shake off entrenched prejudices.
Given her diverse but integrated projects, it may seem that Johnston followed a preordained career path, from young sailor to professional marine scientist and communicator. That’s not the case. “I didn’t have a clue what I wanted to be,” she confesses. “Growing up we had lots of music and visits to art galleries. I was tempted to be a painter.”
Proving her point that women can handle the ‘hard’ subjects, Johnston won the first Nancy Millis Medal for Women in Science, awarded by the Australian Academy of Science on International Women’s Day, 2014. The award honours the memory of the late Professor Nancy Millis, a Melbourne University microbiologist who pioneered the field of biotechnology in Australia. It is just one of a string of awards, including the 2012 New South Wales Science and Engineering Awards and the New South Wales Government’s 2015 Eureka Award for the public communication of research.
Proving her point that women can handle the ‘hard’ subjects, Johnston won the first Nancy Millis Medal for Women in Science, awarded by the Australian Academy of Science on International Women’s Day, 2014. The fact is, young Johnston was presented with a world of ideas and options. Her father was an applied mathematician at Melbourne’s Monash University. Her mother was a chemist, until she was forced to leave work when refused a request for part-time work after starting a family. Undaunted, she took up painting and studied Japanese. “That was back in the 70s,” sighs Johnston, who works hard to encourage girls to see a place for themselves in the STEM disciplines: science, technology, engineering and mathematics. “Women are socially and culturally engendered to think of maths and physics as difficult – that we don’t have a natural facility with them,” says Johnston. “It’s not true. What the community believes the child believes, and it affects a child’s choices and performance.”
At first glance, the Eureka Award represents a recent twist on Johnston’s linear path from sailor to scientist. In fact, it links directly back to her childhood as the daughter of a scientist who had postings in France, England and Japan, as well as Australia. With so many experiences under her belt at an early age, it’s not surprising that in her teens she had decided to be a science journalist.
This professional head start enabled the early-career scientist to get straight into the field – in Johnston’s case, the water. She has explored the tropical waters of the Great Barrier Reef and the sea beds of Antarctica, investigating the impact of human activities on marine life. “So I studied biology, physics, chemistry and maths, and majored in the philosophy 23
ENVIRONMENT
of science at the University of Melbourne,” Johnston recalls. “I was also very motivated by social and environmental issues and was the president of the student union.” Science, journalism, public advocacy – it began to fuse when Johnston took a class in ecological research. Johnston explains: “I was fascinated. I did an honours then PhD in the field, and got a job straight out of my PhD. That’s very unusual.” This professional head start enabled the earlycareer scientist to get straight into the field – in Johnston’s case, the water. She has explored the tropical waters of the Great Barrier Reef and the sea beds of Antarctica, investigating the impact of human activities on marine life. Sweeping seagrass meadows and kelp forests, rocky corals and sponge gardens, even handfuls of soft sediment from harbours and estuaries, provide vital information about life underwater. The results can be significant. For instance, by combining data collected in Sydney Harbour and many other estuaries in NSW with laboratory assays, Johnston demonstrated a decade ago that toxic contaminants, particularly copper, facilitate the potentially disruptive invasion of alien species into coastal waterways. “We’ve now got multiple lines of evidence, a causal mechanism and real-world data through time and space,” says Johnston. She regularly discusses her team’s findings with policymakers and ‘stakeholders’,
Sweeping seagrass meadows and kelp forests, rocky corals and sponge gardens, even handfuls of soft sediment from harbours and estuaries, provide vital information about life underwater. 24
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among them recreational fishers, often reluctant to acknowledge the impact of their favourite hobby. “It’s my job to put the information we gather out, explaining how it was gathered, and to acknowledge and discuss it within the context of their personal experiences.” Meanwhile, Johnston’s group is working with collaborators at the CSIRO, the National University of Singapore and the Canadian Rivers Institute to build “very fun, very cutting edge” tools. The idea is to use the powerful new tools of genetics and ‘big data’ to examine the biodiversity and health of marine ecosystems. “This is the kind of information we need, to understand how we can help species survive in rapidly changing circumstances, which includes rising sea surface temperatures,” Johnston says, noting that some of their “bio-functional diagnostic tools” are this year being adopted by Australian national research programs.
change. We need a national monitoring system to provide confidence that monitoring is ongoing and consistent.”
“This is the kind of information we need, to understand how we can help species survive in rapidly changing circumstances, which includes rising sea surface temperatures,” We need more people like Emma Johnston to get things done and train the next generation. First published on www.australiaunlimited.com Author: Leigh Dayton
“But the latest, most cutting edge tools are still in development, and our initial findings have been received with much interest at international conferences in Hong Kong and the UK, at which I have been a plenary speaker this year.” Despite such successes, there’s more to do. After pulling data together for the State of the Environment report, Johnston became acutely aware that there is no national monitoring system for near-shore coastal systems and estuaries. The result is confusion and conflict about the use of ecosystems such as the Great Barrier Reef and Sydney Harbour. “We need to know if an ecosystem is in good shape or close to a threshold which could put it over the edge,” says Johnston. “We need tools to get information and provide feedback about how ecosystems are responding to
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Australians are leading the charge when it comes to developing innovative products that have a real impact on people’s lives. Read about Daniel Timms’ ground-breaking artificial heart, and the pioneering single-atom electronic devices designed by physicist Michelle Simmons that are putting Australia at the forefront of quantum computing.
IMAGES: TOP LEFT & TOP RIGHT: DANIEL TIMMS INVENTOR OF THE BIVACOR. CREDIT: BIVACOR INC/TEXAS HEART INSTITUTE; BOTTOM LEFT: MICHELLE SIMMONS IN LAB AT THE UNIVERSITY OF NEW SOUTH WALES. CREDIT: CQC2T;. BOTTOM RIGHT: MICHELLE SIMMONS WITH PRIME MINISTER MALCOLM TURNBULL. CREDIT: CQC2T
DESIGN & INNOVATION
DESIGN & INNOVATION
DESIGN & INNOVATION
“But magnetic levitation technology is used in all sorts of things – for example, the trains in China and Japan.” Fins on one side of the spinning disc inside the BiVACOR pump blood around the body. Fins on the other side pump blood to the lungs. And because the disc is levitating, it never touches any other part of the device. “So there’s no part of the device that is wearing out,” says Timms. “That’s a significant thing to note – the predicted lifetime of the BiVACOR is more than 10 years. There’s no reason why the device should stop. Other artificial heart devices may have issues with breaking membranes or other things which have plagued the field so far.”
IMAGE: DANIEL TIMMS AND THE BIVACOR TEAM. CREDIT: BIVACOR INC/TEXAS HEART INSTITUTE.
THE ARTIFICIAL HEART THAT COULD REPLACE TRANSPLANTS
GLOBAL COLLABORATION
Daniel Timms spent his childhood learning the mechanics of plumbing from his father. Today he is using that knowledge to create a ground-breaking artificial heart device with the potential to prolong the lives of millions of people with heart failure. Daniel Timms was 23 years old when he first imagined an artificial heart device in the garage of his parents’ Brisbane home while completing a PhD at the Queensland University of Technology. Little did he know his BiVACOR device would go on to lead the field in artificial heart technology. Small enough to fit inside a child’s chest yet powerful enough to support an adult, the device could be the answer for the tens of thousands of people worldwide who desperately need a heart transplant. With only about 4,000 donor hearts available each year, there is a huge gap between what is needed and what is available. Recipients also have to wait for the right-sized heart from a donor with the right blood type.
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More than 300,000 Australians are affected by heart failure, including Timms’s father, who passed away at age 55. There are 11 million sufferers in the US and Europe, and those figures are expected to increase by 25 per cent by 2030.
weighs about 500 grams, around the same weight as an adult heart.
“The BiVACOR device could act as an alternative to heart transplant. You could pull it off a shelf and implant it in a patient without having to wait,” explains Timms.
In fact, there is no pulse. Rather than having a heartbeat to keep the blood running, the BiVACOR works similarly to a fan – perpetually propelling the blood forward. The key component of the device is a small, spinning disc in the centre, which levitates in a magnetic field.
THE HEART WITH NO PULSE The BiVACOR device looks like it belongs inside a machine, rather than a human. The titanium shell is about half the size of other artificial heart devices. It is small enough to fit in the palm of your hand and
“If you were to see it on a desk, you couldn’t guess what it does,” says Timms. “And that’s because it doesn’t work on the basis of a pulse, like a natural heart.”
“If you see it, it does seem like magic. You can see it levitating in air – or blood in our case – and wonder ... how can that happen?” says Timms.
Timms says his background knowledge for the BiVACOR device came from his father. The pair would work in their garage and visit hardware stores to develop Timms’s vision. It’s taken 15 years from the first rough sketch of the device to the present. In that time, Timms completed a mechanical engineering degree at the Queensland University of Technology (QUT), as well as a PhD on the BiVACOR idea. He did this while working at Brisbane’s Prince Charles Hospital, where he was able to seek rare insights from doctors and surgeons to further develop the technology. A second big break for Timms came when he was approached by Germany’s Helmholtz Institute, which is a world leader in engineering elements of artificial heart technology. At the same time, a lifelong cooperation was formed with key Japanese researchers, who helped to refine the magnetic levitation system. “I’d known about Helmholtz from my studies,” says Timms. “Fortunately they opened the doors for our team to go and work there for almost three years.
“Their experience in developing these heart devices, from an engineering perspective in terms of manufacturing, is unique to that institute. So, without their assistance, we may have stumbled in particular areas, like specialised engineering techniques.” This was just one of many international collaborations for Timms, who seems to have a knack for developing relationships with scientists around the world. For instance, Taiwan’s National Cheng Kung University offered him a lab for a month, with access to their artificial heart technology and preclinical testing opportunities. “I walked in essentially with my device in my backpack and said, ‘Here it is, but I don’t know how to connect it into the circulation system just yet’,” says Timms. “They went out the back, opened a cupboard and brought out a connection they’d used in the 1980s and then refined it for our device.”
HUMAN TRIALS THE NEXT STOP Many of the research papers Timms read from a young age were written by leading cardiac surgeon, Dr Bud Frazier, who has been involved in the development of artificial heart technology for 50 years. Dr Frazier is also Director of Cardiovascular Surgical Research at the Texas Heart Institute, where Timms and the BiVACOR team continue to work in close collaboration. “Dr Frazier saw our device while I was presenting at a conference in Paris in 2009,” says Timms. “He predicted it would be something that would lead the artificial heart field in the future – and his contribution to the field is beyond human. To have his endorsement and contributions early on was crucial to us having success in our field, and to open the doors required to get something like this across the line.”
One of the most crucial doors was to the Texas Heart Institute (THI), where Dr Frazier has been pioneering artificial heart development since Dr Denton Cooley implanted the first artificial heart in a human in 1969. In 2015, a team of 25 medical and engineering specialists from around the world implanted the BiVACOR device into a sheep at QUT’s Medical Engineering Research Facility. Six hours later, the sheep was standing and eating. Dr Billy Cohn, a pioneering American heart surgeon from the THI, was part of the team that completed the transplant. “A sheep without a heart [was] being kept alive by a machine with one moving part,” Cohn said in an interview with The Australian newspaper. “No pulse at all … the BiVACOR team have come up with a mechanism that makes an artificial heart balance [systemic blood flow] like a native heart, which nobody has ever been able to do.” The BiVACOR team is now headquartered in the Texas Medical Center, in Houston, and pre-clinical testing is underway to submit the device to the regulatory bodies for human use evaluation. As the proud son of a Brisbane plumber, Timms fondly remembers the time he spent with his dad, building pumps and irrigation systems in the backyard. His father did not live to see Timms’s artificial heart come to fruition, but the knowledge he passed on to his son may soon enable millions of people to lead longer, more fulfilling lives. First published on www.australiaunlimited.com Author: Imogen Brennan
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DESIGN & INNOVATION
new modelling abilities that will improve the quality and speed of drug development. Simmons says quantum computers could help transport and delivery companies dramatically reduce fuel consumption, or improve the pattern-recognition software in self-driving cars, making them safer and faster. For everyday people, benefits could range from real-time analysis of traffic and weather, to a new era of personalised medicine.
ENTERING THE QUANTUM REALM IMAGE: MICHELLE SIMMONS, DIRECTOR OF THE ARC CENTRE OF EXCELLENCE FOR QUANTUM COMPUTATION AND COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGIES. CREDIT: CQC2T
AUSTRALIA LEADING THE GLOBAL QUANTUM RACE A pioneer in the fabrication of single-atom electronic devices, physicist Michelle Simmons has turned Australia into a global powerhouse in the international race to develop a viable quantum computer. “Quantum computing allows you to solve certain problems in minutes that would take conventional computers centuries, or even thousands of years,” says Professor Michelle Simmons from the University of New South Wales (UNSW Sydney). Rather than performing sequential calculations one after the other like conventional computers, these futuristic machines will carry out calculations in parallel. Australia is leading the international race to develop a viable quantum computer in silicon. This powerhouse status is thanks in large part to Simmons, who is the Director of the ARC Centre of Excellence for Quantum Computation and Communication Technology. The Centre comprises close to 180 researchers across UNSW Sydney, The University of Melbourne, Australian National 30
University, Griffith University, The University of Sydney, UNSW Canberra at the Australian Defence Force Academy, and The University of Queensland. Around the world, research groups have explored various approaches to developing a quantum computer, some involving exotic materials. Simmons and her Centre have focused on just two ‘implementation’ strategies: developing an optical quantum computer, where information is encoded in photons of light, and developing a solidstate quantum computer using silicon as the base material. The latter is where they have demonstrated international leadership with pathways to scale to practical systems: “We have been systematically building that capability in
Australia for over a decade, giving us a competitive edge,” she says. “We’re leading the field in atomic precision devices and it will be very hard for people to catch us.”
SOLVING SPECIFIC COMPLEX PROBLEMS Simmons’s team has a detailed plan to build a 10-qubit integrated circuit device within five years, and is aiming for a 100-qubit system within the decade beyond that. If all goes to plan, she says, quantum computers will excel at searching colossal datasets, solving complex optimisation problems, and modelling things like financial markets or simulating biological molecules. Quantum technologies will provide important
The unique ability of quantum computers stems from how information is encoded. In conventional computers, information is represented by classical bits: the zeroes and ones of binary code, determined by a transistor device being switched ‘off’ or ‘on’. In the atomic-scale devices Simmons is renowned for fabricating, information is written on the electron-spin or nuclear spin of individual phosphorus atoms precisely positioned in silicon, known as quantum bits, or qubits. By cooling the device to extremely low temperatures and putting it in a magnetic field, they can create the two-level quantum system where the spin behaves as a tiny bar magnet and either aligns with the field, representing a zero state, or against the field, representing a one state analogous to classical information. But qubits have spooky properties and can exist in a superposition of these states at the same time. A consequence of this is that the amount of information doubles with each new qubit added to a system, giving rise to an exponential increase in its computational power. Furthermore, qubits also exhibit a strange state known as quantum entanglement. Any operation carried out, says Simmons, will affect all the qubits and their coherent
states, simultaneously. “This is what enables the power of massive parallel processing,” she says. With 300 qubits, it is theoretically possible to store as much classical information (ones and zeroes) as there are atoms in the universe. A system this size, if error corrected, would be more powerful than the most powerful supercomputer with billions of classical bits.
THE SILICON STORY AND ITS ADVANTAGES In 1998, a physicist named Bruce Kane outlined a hypothetical approach for building a quantum computer in silicon using phosphorus atoms at the qubits. Simmons, then at Cambridge University in the UK, had “exquisite control” over her Gallium arsenide quantum devices but was unable to make the same device twice. “I was genuinely frustrated,” she recalls. “Bruce’s proposal got rid of all the things we knew were causing problems ... and reduced the problem to just phosphorus and silicon. I thought the concept was about the simplest way you could make a reproducible quantum device, and it was on the edge of what was technically feasible.” As the material used in all modern-day computer chips, silicon offers several advantages: it’s easy to manufacture, can be purified to contain no other spins, and its properties are well understood thanks to trillions of dollars of research and development investment. Simmons decided it was the “best material in the world to build a scalable quantum computer” and never looked back.
COMING TO AUSTRALIA TO BE A SCIENTIFIC LEADER In 1999, Simmons made an “easy decision” to come to Australia. “I felt the Australian culture
was much more open and collaborative than the US or UK, and had many more opportunities for young people to find leadership roles early in their career,” she says. With funding and academic freedom to pursue “ambitious and high-risk” projects, Simmons has led a steady flow of scientific breakthroughs and technical achievements. Her team developed the world’s first singleatom transistor and the narrowest conducting wires in silicon. They have demonstrated the ability to read-out the spin states of individual electron spins on single phosphorus atoms with the highest precision, and more recently, earned the distinction of having the ‘lowest noise’ of any silicon device. Interference or ‘noise’ from the surrounding environment can wreak havoc with the ability of qubits to keep their state, so this is an important achievement, she says. In late 2015, the Australian Government promised A$26 million to help the Centre translate its research. This was quickly followed up with A$10 million pledges from the Commonwealth Bank of Australia and telecommunications giant Telstra.
REAPING THE REWARD Simmons was made a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, which includes 250 Nobel Laureates, and won the 2015 CSIRO Eureka Prize for Leadership in Science. After receiving the 2017 L’Oréal-UNESCO For Women in Science Award, Simmons said: “Trying to control nature at its very smallest scale is such an exciting and rewarding field to be in. This has been my passion for many years and has such tremendous potential. I am honoured by this recognition and hope it inspires others.” First published on www.australiaunlimited.com Author: Myles Gough 31
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