 All right. Good morning everybody. Welcome to the University of Adelaide. Welcome to the Braggs Lecture Theatre. Welcome to this session on Biological Sciences. My name's Grant Booker and it's my great pleasure to lead off this discussion today and introduce Zoe and Erin to you a bit later on. So please room down the front so people are coming in a bit late. Please join us. There's plenty of room down the front. You're very much like my first year students who tend to sit at the back of a lecture theatre. So there's plenty of room. Come on down. So this morning, one of the things I want to bring across to you is that Biological Sciences has enormous breadth. We're in the School of Biological Sciences and we cover everything from really enormous systems like ecosystems and climate change all the way through down to very molecular and cellulite-type scales. So we work on both ends of the spectrum. We work on really exciting field trips and field excursions and we also work in the laboratory on microscopic scale. We also cover everything from plants and animals and insects through to human biology, disease and even trying to get new drugs for therapies for new diseases. So again we cover this enormous breadth in biology and I want to try and bring that through to you today as we go through. Welcome to the Bragg Selection Theatre as I say. It's named after one of our Nobel Prize winning Lawrence Bragg. On the left there, a graduate of this university in 1908, he shared the Nobel Prize in 1915 with his father William Lawrence who was a physicist here and mathematician. So we have a very proud history of research at this university. We have a number of Nobel graduates and so the question I would pose on the right-hand side there as well. I wonder if there's any new Nobel Prize winning graduates yet to come but sitting in the audience this morning. So the idea actually really is not so much about us today, in fact it's about you and what your futures might be and where you might end up once you've done a science degree. So let's actually find out a little bit about the audience at the moment. What have we got? How many people are in year 10? How many students in year 10? Good. So starting to think about subject choices, year 11 and 12, that's really good. How about year 11? Yes, more in year 11 is starting to get serious isn't it? You're starting to think about a bit more and I'm guessing we've mostly got year 12? Yes, they win. Okay, that's good. So the idea really is we're here today to help you find out about what's possible. We can't tell you what to do, we can't tell you what you want to be, you've got to work that out for yourselves. What we can do is start to give you information about what's possible and more importantly perhaps how you might get there. So today, this morning, I want you to think about your futures. Imagine the future. And that future might not actually be all that far away. We're faced with some pretty impressive problems in the future. We've got imminent climate change, we've got to deal with that. We've got the impact that intelligent drones is going to have on your lives, on our lives. And the incredible impact on the human genome and understanding the human genome and what that's going to mean for medicine and the practice of medicine and this concept of personalised medicine. That's an enormous way of coming. We need to be able to make food at a much more efficient rate and we need to find alternative sources of fuels. And these are all really major problems that we as biologists are faced with all the time. And in fact, we have big programs in research in this university on these very areas. And in fact, you can get a lot of information on that as you wander around today. So these are some of the big challenges and to help you get there or to help you help us solve these problems are some of the areas of science that we cover here and that we can introduce you to. Everything from marine biology, you'll hear a lot about marine biology this morning from Zoe. So biochemistry, I'm a biochemist. It's my background in biomedical science. We've got genetics, we've got drug design, we've got conservation and so forth. And of course, to try and introduce education to these types of skills, we have a series of degrees that I want to tell you about. So there's a Bachelor of Science itself, a very broad degree that's very flexible. You can choose the subjects that you take there. There's a Bachelor of Science Advanced, which is for those students who are pretty confident they want a research career and we can give them some advanced training and get them going and flying fairly early. We've got conservation, wildlife, biology. So these names, so-called name degrees are flavors of the Bachelor of Science, which are enclosed with brackets. And the names give you a bit of an indication of where they're likely to be and what sort of subjects courses we've already chosen for you. The Bachelor of Science, Marine Biology, Bachelor of Science, Biomedical Science and Biotechnology. There's some subtle differences to these and I'd really encourage you to go and ask some of our colleagues next door in the marquee about the differences in those various degrees. I'll give you a little bit more information when I come back, but what I'd like to do first, in fact, is introduce you to one of our exciting young scientists in the school and Zoe's going to tell you about her story and what an exciting year she's had, but I won't take away her, so I'll let her tell you about her year. Thanks, Zoe. Thanks, Grant. Can you all hear me okay? Yeah? So when I was a Grade 12 graduate, like many of you here today, I was overwhelmed by the sense of decision. I mean, how do you know what to choose that will, you know, determine the rest of your life? If you choose a rock, for instance, what if the paper comes along and it's not so good? At the end of the day, you never quite know because you can't go back in time and try something else and see if it was better or worse. But I think what I've experienced thus far is that if you choose the decisions for the right reasons, then you can't go wrong. So my first decision was whether or not to go to uni. I wasn't necessarily grew up in an academic background, but it's something I really liked was learning as curious about the world. So that was quite an easy decision for me. So the first fork in the road that I came across was what to choose. I mean, my diet to just walk down to the news agent and buy myself a handbook about this thick, flick through the pages and choose my destiny. And it was so many options. I was a bit of a generalist. I liked lots of different things. So what do you choose? So I narrowed it down to two things. I liked nature. I liked plants and animals. So I love biology. That was easy. I also liked writing. I liked writing stories. They seemed quite different. And then I decided being a writer might not pay my future mortgage as well. So then I chose biology and did a degree. I really enjoyed it. And then during, but during summer of my degree, I did an internship at a mine on the Wild West Coast of Tasmania. And after that internship, they said, you've got a job here. Once you finish your degree, it was all signed, paperwork done, permanent. And at first it seemed to no brainer what to choose, because it was like mining salary or, you know, future Centrelink cues. And then I was like, you know, then I thought a bit more. Most of the people at the mine, they ended up, you know, they moved to Mount Isa after a few years, Olympic Dam, Calgoody. I thought, oh, do I want that? I could do one more year and see if I really like research. It's just one more year. I can deal with being poor for one more year. They're like, oh, and they like the environment of uni. So then it switched. And then I carried on and did honors. And then gotten for punishment. I did a PhD and played around with Octopus for a few years. So I came across a few more forklifts in the road along the way. And then I ended up here as a working as a marine ecologist at the University of Adelaide. So yes, you can get employed to do rather cool things. So what I like about my job now is the variation. And what you never quite know is what the job will be like and to experience it. So what I do a lot of the time is I write, so I get to write lots of different things so I can sort of bring those two things together here. I like the diverse group of people I work with from all different cultures, backgrounds. And so I like the variety, the diversity. You get to travel, work in the field lab. And you never quite know what's going to come from day to day when you go to work. That's what I like is the variety. You always keep on, you always kept on your toes. You never bored. So this photo is a friend took why he was, this is a photo of his TV before he went to work watching ABC24 News. That morning I didn't know I was going to be on TV. So I tell you a story about how it came about. A few months ago I did some research on cephalopods. So they're squid, octopus, cuttlefish. And that showed they were increasing around the world, proliferating in abundance. So that research was published in a scientific journal. It had a media embargo that was going to be released on the 23rd of May this year. This is a sort of larger research project I've been in. I thought I might actually get, you know, a journalist might ring me tomorrow or the next day. Never quite knowing the sort of media science thing worked. So it was released at midnight Australian time. And while I was asleep it was generating lots of interest in the U.S. So I woke up to my phone ringing. It was a producer from ABC24. And they said, can you come into the studios now? I was like, what? I've not been very much a morning person. I was quite grumpy and petulant, like a child being dragged out of bed on a Saturday morning. But they were quite firm with me. And they said, no, you're coming in. So I was like, right, jumped out of bed, drank a cup of coffee, hopped in the car, swore at the peak hour traffic from Port Adelaide to Collinswood and arrived flustered in the studio. So they put me in a room, nice Torrens River behind me. And the technician came in and said, you've done this before, haven't you? And I said, no. And he said, you don't get nervous, do you? I said, yes. He said, no, you'll be fine. So he wired me up, wired me up. I had no idea what was going on. And he's just like, you look at the camera there. So I'm like, I don't actually speak. I'm not speaking to a person. And he goes, no. So you do that. And then there's like, oh, this is Sydney. This is Sydney, technician from Sydney. You'll be on with Joe O'Brien in five minutes, four minutes, three, two, one. And then seven minutes later, the interview ended and then my life sort of turned on its head. I was caught up. I got to my office and my phone was ringing flat out. I was caught in this eye of this media storm beyond my own reckoning. My life was crazy for several weeks. I was talking to journalists late at night early in the morning from the New York Times to community radio to the highbrow and not so highbrow. It was insane. And it ended up being one of the biggest media stories to come out of the University of Adelaide. And it was on squid. So, you know, go figure. So these are just some of the more humorous things to come out of our research. It was interpreted by artists, cartoonists, and even satirists from The Onion. And some of the media headlines got a bit crazy as well. So why are you just reading that? I just want to show you one more thing. So this is Pendacta Maxima. It's the largest, rarest, most valuable one. I'd say most beautiful oyster species in the world. So why have I brought it in here today? Well, it's to show you that I don't just study cephalopods. I also study the calcified structures of aquatic animals like this. We look at the chemistry and go fad to look into the past and see how environmental change affects the animals. But what I wanted to bring it into you today is for another reason. It's to tell when I was sort of going through uni and working out what to do, anyone used to tell me the world is your oyster. The world is your oyster. So a great saying penned by Shakespeare over 400 years ago. So it means you can do anything you want and believe me, once you turn 30, no one says it to you anymore. So appreciate it while it lasts. So it doesn't matter what your background is. You can do what you want. You can find this. I was a homeschooled kid from the Tasmanian bush and just suffice to say I never had the right qualifications when you don't have any. So I don't want you to find any old oyster. I want you to find this. So my advice for you today is to go out to open day. It's a great resource the university has put on for you today. Go and talk to the people. They're not scary. I'd love for you to go and talk to them. Go and talk to your elders, your friends, your family, your peers. Go home and think. But make a decision based on what you want to do, not what someone else wants you to do or what society wants you to do. And if you choose those, if it's come intrinsically from here, then I don't think you can go wrong and then you'll find this. Thank you. Thanks Zoe. Thanks Zoe. That's fantastic. A really great example of how the impact from a lot of other people all around the world. The next story for you is Erin's story. And again, she's been out having an exciting time on the world stage this year. So I'll let her tell you her story. Hey guys. Cool story. This is my story. I'm a PhD student here at the University of Adelaide. And this photo was taken at a recent field trip. So I think one of the really cool things about studying biology and environmental science is you get to go out in the world and in nature and see some really cool stuff. So myself and my supervisor headed up to Inaminka, which is almost at the border of South Australia, Queensland and the Northern Territory. And we were hunting for a giant wasp that comes to light at night time. So we were four wheel driving on dirt tracks during the day, setting up camp at night and running a light trap for four nights. We didn't find the wasp. But it was good fun. So when I was in high school, I had decided I was going to be a forensic pathologist. I'd read far too many Patricia Cornwell books. And I was getting pretty good grades in high school. I had teachers saying you should do medicine. You know, do a pathology thing. You've got the grades for it. And I thought, I don't want to do medicine. It doesn't get me excited. What gets me excited is bugs. And I think studying what gets you excited and what you can talk about for hours to your best friend or your neighbour or your pet dog, that's what you should do. So I decided I like talking to people. I like bugs. I'm going to do entomology, study insects and maybe be a science communicator. So I came here to the University of Adelaide and did a Bachelor of Science degree, which was really cool because you get to study heaps and heaps of different stuff. So in first year I did geology, I did physics, I did chemistry, I did biology. I tried to do everything I possibly could. And stuff that you don't get to do in high school. So I'd never done geology before. I'd never done paleontology. And found they were really fascinating. There were parts of science there. You really don't get to even try until you get to university. So I did subjects where went on really cool field trips and I caught caves, dug up bones, did subjects where I was in the lab doing, you know, making really cool things in chemistry and had a really cool three years. And at the end of that I decided I hadn't finished learning. I wanted to keep learning something new and I did it on this year here at uni. So this is like a nine month research project after you finish your degree. It's kind of the first time you get to do real science. You get to discover something new. But if you enjoy science and you like being a scientist is really the best bit. You're discovering something that no one else has discovered before. So I studied these little guys. They're called amphipods. They're like tiny little shrimps that live in the groundwater. So Western Australia under the ground. They're hidden in these little underwater caves that they've got no eyes because you don't need them when it's pitch black. And no pigmentation because there's no sunlight to kind of hurt their skin. That was really cool. I managed to get a job in the same lab. I was doing honors in as a research assistant. So I was helping a post-doctoral researcher work on these cool little bugs. So if you've ever seen a gum leaf and seen a sticky white dot on a gum leaf, anyone seen those before? Yeah, so they're caused by these bugs called psyllids. So they come in heaps and heaps of different colors and shapes and sizes. It was really cool. Yeah, I was getting paid to do science straight out of my degree, so it can happen. And it was really fun. I then decided I really wanted to start talking to people about science. So I headed over to ANU in Canberra and did a Masters of Science Communication Outreach with CuestaCon, the National Science and Technology Center. So we got to play with slime and blow up hydrogen balloons, make explosions in front of primary school students. This is me with cornflower slime in front of a hundred year threes. It's really cool. So yeah, had a great fun and couldn't do it without that background in actually knowing what science is that came from my degree here. And I worked full time after that as a science communicator here in Adelaide for an outreach company, going out to schools and putting on shows, running workshops, trying to get kids excited about science. But after that six months I decided, wait, no, I made the wrong choice. I want to actually be as slime, to not just talk about it. So I'm back here at uni doing a PhD. They're called wasps. They're called parasitoids, so they lay their eggs inside caterpillars. The baby wasps are kind of like wriggling white maggots. They eat the caterpillar for an inside out while it's still alive. And it kind of burst out. If you've seen them, maybe alien, you know what I'm talking about. So they're really pretty awesome. So I get to go out and do field work. That's me in the field collecting caterpillars, hoping that they've got wasps inside them. And I'm a year three really enjoying it and I'm a science communicator as well. So this year I was the Australian champion for a competition called FameLab. So you've got to explain your science in three minutes. And I headed over to the Cheltenham Science Festival and got to talk about my science over there. So pretty cool. So you can check out my blog. It's called A Day in the Life of a Scientist. Mustard the Dinosaur, that's my mascot that we believe. Or tweet me or I'll be over in the marquee for the rest of the day if you've got any questions. Thanks guys. You've been a great example of taking our science from Adelaide through to the world and presenting in this case in London a very exciting opportunity. I think you'd agree two very passionate descriptions of their sort of careers so far. They've got a lot of science ahead of them. I can assure you they're very impressive. But I guess one of the message there is to follow your passion. It doesn't have to be a straight line. It can go and wander in all sorts of directions. But if you're following your passion you'll be there and you'll succeed. I'm going to switch gears a little bit I guess and go back to something that's a little bit more mundane but perhaps a little bit more practical and maybe also a little bit more what you're expecting to see this morning in some of the nuts and bolts of what we do here and what sort of careers you can get with a degree. And the answer actually is lots and lots and the beauty of a science degree and engineering, maths, technology and so-called STEM area is that it is generic skills that you can genuinely transfer into almost any industry completely. It's just problem solving, analytical skills, data collection, data analysis. These are skills that you can take anywhere and you can start those with a science degree. So you can pick your favourite one out of that list, there's plenty more that you can choose from. You've had a little bit already about some of the sort of courses Erin flashed a few of hers up there but the structure that we use here is for a three year degree a Bachelor of Science or its flavours we have a level one, level two and level three so you have what we call courses so a degree is what we call a program and courses are what you might call subjects and so we have a semesterised system here in the first half of the year of semester one, second half of the year of semester two so you do four courses in semester one, four courses in semester two so eight courses in year one, eight courses in year two generally and often in year three we're starting to specialise a bit more and we have fewer but larger courses and so level three you'll see I've got four red blocks there indicating four courses and that's where you start to end up with what we call a major so you're starting to major in an area or you're starting to focus in an area of science degree is those first year choices because you've got eight courses to do as Erin said you can try some different stuff you can try some geology, you can try some maths you can try all sorts of things the beauty of a science degree and a biology degree actually also is that it feeds into lots of opportunities at year two and three Erin also, or both of the Erin and Zoe mentioned this idea of an honours degree it's a fourth year research and it's the first degree about 50% of our graduates from the three year degree go into an honours degree and so it's a real option to think about I know it's another year but it's an important year in fact I would argue you learn more in that fourth year than you do the previous three combined it really is a maturing and exciting and different year so for example in the biologies we run in level one we run a couple of courses in semester two and concepts in biology and actually there are two streams that are both rigorous biologies but are focused on whether you've got a background in chemistry or not for molecules, genes and cells we assume a chemistry background in concepts in biology we don't, we try and pick you up and get you into the same level but deal with the chemistry underneath it's a less molecular focused course second semester we feed into a sort of an alternative of biology of organisms which is more focused on plants and animals and insects and so forth or there's the human perspectives which is more focused on biomedical science and human biology and so then after completing that first year of biology the world explodes into a choice and so level two you've got all sorts of opportunities everything from biochemistry my favourite of course through to virology and immunology and genetics and various other ologies so to pinch Lowe's analogy the world is your oyster and start to open up at that point and so that's what we call a major you then choose one or two of these areas to focus in and they become your majors and you're working towards achieving a graduation in that area so that's a sort of course structure you can get much more information from various people about this I guess can answer some questions for you today the other thing I'd really encourage you to do today is to look at the facilities so upstairs on the third and fourth floor of this very building our some fantastic new facilities for undergraduate teaching and here we've got a couple of our first years playing on an iPad a few years ago nice and staged in our fabulous labs so I hate to think about playing on the iPad but there certainly wasn't some science I can tell you so have a look at those got and see some of the fantastic laboratories we've got and particularly some of the facilities in biomedical science we've heard a lot about the environmental side of the science today but as I said earlier we really do carry the whole breadth from the ecology through to the molecular so please come and see some of the stands that we've got next door in the marquee and that can give you much more information about life as a laboratory scientist in molecular areas we've got some short talks coming so up on the third floor of this very building we've got some short talks for you so our newly crowned South Australian scientist of the year Professor Alan Cooper is going to give a couple of talks upstairs on some interesting topics as you can read there and so please go and see those make sure that you go next door to the huge marquee it's where all the things are happening find the various stands we've got there we've got also the marine biology with the dive boat out in the foyer of the building next door which is called the medical life sciences building so please make sure you make the most of today ask lots of questions, don't be afraid come up and ask questions go and have a touch and a feel and play with the equipment and see what we've got to offer and really thank you to Erin and Zoe and thank you all for listening and enjoy your morning here thank you