Flinders University researchers are key players in four major cooperative projects awarded Linkage Infrastructure, Equipment and Facilities grants in January to build Australia’s research capacity.

The Protein Quantitation Centre of South Australia won $950,000 to expand its mass spectrometry capacity towards metabolites, glycans and lipids, that will enable better understanding of biological processes through characterising and quantifying biomolecules. Flinders University jointly established the centre with the University of South Australia and the University of Adelaide, and Dr Timothy Chataway, Professor Paul Kirkbride and Professor Damien Keating are involved in this University of South Australia-led project.

Dr Cedric Bardy and Professor Stuart Brierley will help develop the first comprehensive toolbox of ion channel modulators, using an integrated in vitro/in vivo electrophysiology platform. The resulting pharmacological tools will be made freely available for researchers in Australia to investigate the mechanism and physiological function of ion channels. Led by the University of Queensland, this project, awarded $620,000 through the grants, will address the lack of pharmacological modulators which are powerful tools for probing ion channel function.

In another project led by Southern Cross University, Flinders researchers Dr Ian Moffat, Professor Donald Pate and Professor Gavin Prideaux will join a team integrating a multicollector mass spectrometer within an existing laboratory at Southern Cross. This will establish a unique national facility able to offer tandem trace element and isotopes analysis. Awarded $580,000, the project will allow precise matching of elemental concentration with isotopic ratios, which is crucial for microscale resolution and data accuracy.