Frances Separovic

Last updated

Professor Frances Separovic
AO FAA
Frances Separovic.jpg
Born~1954
Known for Solid-state nuclear magnetic resonance.
Membrane biophysics.
Scientific career
Fields Biophysical chemistry
InstitutionsSchool of Chemistry
University of Melbourne
Australia

Frances Separovic AO FAA (born ~1954) [1] is an Australian biophysical chemist. She is a Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Chemistry at the University of Melbourne, where she taught physical chemistry and trained graduate students in her field. [2] She is credited with developing techniques that utilise nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy (NMR) to study peptides in lipid bilayers, with applications in the study of the structure of membrane proteins and their effects on membranes. [3] Her more recent research concerns 'the structure and interactions of amyloid peptides from Alzheimer's disease, pore-forming toxins and antibiotic peptides in model biological membranes'. [4]

Contents

Early life

Franica Šeparović was born in the Federal People's Republic of Yugoslavia, People's Republic of Croatia and emigrated to Australia with her family in 1957. They settled in Broken Hill, western New South Wales. Separovic excelled in school and she was awarded both a Commonwealth and teacher's scholarship; she began tertiary studies at the University of Sydney, but soon left to work at the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO). In addition to working full-time and studying part-time, Separovic was also a young mother. [5]

Early career and academic achievements

Separovic's career in science began as a Technical Assistant at a CSIRO microbiology lab (1972–78) [6] 'counting colonies' and 'doing the washing up'. [7] Adept at these basic tasks, she habitually finished her work early and went in search of more to do. Her capacity with mathematics recommended her to a group in the division involved in modelling lipid membranes and trying to discover why they leak. [7] This was the project in which Separovic first encountered an NMR instrument – at the time (the 70s) [6] a new technique – which played a major role in her research. It was here, too, that she made her first contribution to a scientific paper: using her aptitude for mathematics to determine via 'simple geometry' the smallest possible radius of a vesicle which it is possible to make (10-nanometers), solving a contemporaneous argument within the scientific community. [7]

In 1978, Separovic completed a Technical Certificate in Biology at Sydney Technical College, [6] and continued to work at the CSIRO as a Technical Officer while studying part-time on a Bachelor of Arts at Macquarie University, with majors in Mathematics and Physics. [5] She completed her undergraduate degree in 1984, at which time she became an Experimental Scientist at CSIRO; in 1986 she finished an Honours qualification in Physics (also at Macquarie University). Between 1986 and 1992, [6] as a single parent and while working full-time at the CSIRO, she completed a PhD (part-time) in Physics at the University of New South Wales. [7] Following a post-doctoral fellowship at the National Institutes of Health (Bethesda, USA), Frances returned briefly to CSIRO before moving to the University of Melbourne as an Associate Professor & Reader in 1996. [6]

Later career and public recognition

In 2005, Separovic became the first woman to be appointed a full professor of chemistry in Victoria [7] and was Head of School of Chemistry, University of Melbourne (2010–2016) and Deputy Director of the Bio21 Institute (2017-2023). She is currently Professor of Chemistry at the Bio21 Institute, Foreign Secretary of the Australian Academy of Science, member of the Science Board of International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) and Advisory Committee of InterAcademy Partnership (AIP), and Past-President of the Biophysical Society; and was a member of Council of International Union for Pure and Applied Biophysics (IUPAB), President of the Australian & New Zealand Magnetic Society for Resonance (ANZMAG), Treasurer of the Royal Australian Chemical Institute (RACI), President of the Australian Society for Biophysics, [2] and chaired the board of the Centre for Chemistry and Biotechnology at Deakin University. [6] She has been on the editorial board of Biochimica et Biophysica Acta , an editor of European Biophysics Journal and a member of the editorial advisory board of Accounts of Chemical Research and Chemical Reviews .

In 2012 Frances Separovic was made Fellow of the International Society for Magnetic Resonance (ISMAR), the Biophysical Society (USA) and the Australian Academy of Science – the first woman to be elected to the AAS in the field of chemistry. At the time, Separovic had published over 130 papers and successfully organized more than 25 conferences, [7] which she has since more than doubled. [6] Frances was one of twelve IUPAC Distinguished Women in Chemistry/Chemical Engineering awardees and received the University of New South Wales Alumni Award for Science & Technology in 2017, the Royal Australian Chemical Institute Margaret Sheil Leadership Award in 2019 and the Rosalba Kampman Distinguished Service Award of the Biophysical Society [8] in 2024.

In March 2018 Separovic was inducted into the Victorian Honour Roll of Women [9] and, in February 2019, became Redmond Barry Distinguished Professor Emeritus [10] at the University of Melbourne. Frances was appointed an Officer of the Order of Australia (AO) in the 2019 Queen's Birthday Honours for her "distinguished service to science education, particularly to biophysical chemistry, as an academic, and to young women scientists". [11] On International Women's Day 2024, she received a Croatian Women of Influence (Science & Technology) award [12] and in November 2024 was awarded Docteur Honoris Causa by University of Bordeaux. [13]

Related Research Articles

The Faculty of Science at the University of Melbourne is one of the largest in Australia, with over 10,000 undergraduate and postgraduate students and a significant interdisciplinary research agenda.

Adrienne Elizabeth Clarke is professor emeritus of Botany at the University of Melbourne, where she ran the Plant Cell Biology Research Centre from 1982 to 1999. She is a former chairman of the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation, former Lieutenant Governor of Victoria (1997–2000) and former Chancellor of La Trobe University (2011–2017).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mildred Cohn</span> American biochemist (1913–2009)

Mildred Cohn was an American biochemist who furthered understanding of biochemical processes through her study of chemical reactions within animal cells. She was a pioneer in the use of nuclear magnetic resonance for studying enzyme reactions, particularly reactions of adenosine triphosphate (ATP).

Harden M. McConnell was an American physical chemist. His many awards included the National Medal of Science and the Wolf Prize, and he was elected to the National Academy of Science."

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ruth Bishop</span> Australian virologist (1933–2022)

Ruth Frances Bishop was an Australian virologist, who was a leading member of the team that discovered the human rotavirus.

Amanda Susan Barnard is an Australian theoretical physicist working in predicting the real world behavior of nanoparticles using analytical models and supercomputer simulations and applied machine learning. Barnard is a pioneer in the thermodynamic cartography of nanomaterials, creating nanoscale phase diagrams relevant to different environmental conditions, and relating these to structure/property maps. Her current research involves developing and applying statistical methods and machine/deep learning in nanoscience and nanotechnology, and materials and molecular informatics. In 2014 she became the first person in the southern hemisphere, and the first woman, to win the Feynman Prize in Nanotechnology, which she won for her work on diamond nanoparticles.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Doug Hilton</span> Australian molecular biologist

Douglas James Hilton is an Australian molecular biologist. He is the CEO of CSIRO and immediate past Director of the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research in Melbourne, Australia. His research has focused on cytokines, signal transduction pathways and the regulation of blood cell formation (hematopoiesis). Hilton was the President of the Association of the Australian Medical Research Institutes (AAMRI) from 2014-16.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Andrew Bruce Holmes</span> Australian and British research chemist and professor

Andrew Bruce Holmes is an Australian and British senior research chemist and professor at the Bio21 Institute, Melbourne, Australia, and the past President of the Australian Academy of Science. His research interests lie in the synthesis of biologically-active natural products and optoelectronic polymers.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ramakrishna V. Hosur</span> Indian biophysical scientist (born 1953)

Professor Ramakrishna Vijayacharya Hosur is an Indian biophysical scientist, known for his expertise in the areas of nuclear magnetic resonance and molecular biophysics. The Government of India honoured him, in 2014, by awarding him the Padma Shri, the fourth highest civilian award, for his contributions to the fields of science and technology.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Anthony Watts (biophysicist)</span>

Anthony Watts is a British biochemist and Professor of Biochemistry at the University of Oxford and C W Maplethorpe Fellow in Biological Sciences and tutor at St. Hugh's College, Oxford. He is a fellow of the Royal Chemical Society, the Institute of Physics, Royal Society of Biology and Biophysical Society. He was managing director of the European Biophysics Journal, and is a co-opted member of the European Biophysical Societies' Association (EBSA), chair of the British Biophysical Society and chair of the Scientific Committee for the IUPAB/EBSA/BBS/IoP Biophysics congress, 2017. He was President of EBSA (2017-2019) and elected President-elect of IUPAB in 2021.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Margaret Sheil</span> Australian academic

Margaret Mary Sheil is an Australian academic and the Vice Chancellor of Queensland University of Technology.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pernilla Wittung-Stafshede</span> Swedish biophysical chemist

Pernilla Wittung-Stafshede is a Swedish biophysical chemist, born in 1968, who is a professor of chemical biology at Chalmers University of Technology in Gothenburg. In 2019 she was named by International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry as a Distinguished Woman in Chemistry.

Lila Mary Gierasch is an American biochemist and biophysicist. At present, she is a distinguished Professor working on "protein folding in the cell" in the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at the College of Natural Sciences, University of Massachusetts Amherst.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Frank Caruso (chemical engineer)</span> Australian chemical engineer (born 1968)

Francesco Caruso is an Australian chemical engineer who is Melbourne Laureate Professor and National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) Senior Principal Research Fellow in the School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at the University of Melbourne, Australia. Caruso is deputy director of the Australian Research Council (ARC) Centre of Excellence in Convergent Bio-Nanoscience and Technology.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jane Dyson</span> British-born biophysicist

Helen Jane Dyson is a British-born biophysicist and a professor of integrative structural and computational biology at the Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, California. She was the 15th editor-in-chief of the Biophysical Journal. She was elected a Member of the National Academy of Sciences in 2022.

Ka Yee Christina Lee is Hong Kong-born American chemist. She is Executive Vice President for Strategic Initiatives and the David Lee Shillinglaw Distinguished Service Professor in the Department of Chemistry at the University of Chicago. She works on membrane biophysics, including protein–lipid interactions, Alzheimer's disease and respiratory distress syndrome. She is a Fellow of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering and American Physical Society.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mei Hong (chemist)</span> Chinese-American chemist

Mei Hong is a Chinese-American biophysical chemist and professor of chemistry at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She is known for her creative development and application of solid-state nuclear magnetic resonance (ssNMR) spectroscopy to elucidate the structures and mechanisms of membrane proteins, plant cell walls, and amyloid proteins. She has received a number of recognitions for her work, including the American Chemical Society Nakanishi Prize in 2021, Günther Laukien Prize in 2014, the Protein Society Young Investigator award in 2012, and the American Chemical Society’s Pure Chemistry award in 2003.

Sarah Louise Veatch is an American biophysicist, associate professor of biophysics at University of Michigan.

Jean Baum is an American chemist. She is the distinguished professor of chemistry and chemical biology at Rutgers University, where she is also vice dean for research and graduate education in the school of arts and sciences, and also vice chair of the department of chemistry and chemical biology. Her research investigates protein–protein interaction and protein aggregation using nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy (NMR) and other biochemical and biophysical techniques. She serves as treasurer for the Protein Society.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Songi Han</span> American chemist and academic

Songi Han is an American chemist who is a professor in the department of chemistry and biochemistry at Northwestern University. Her research considers electron and nuclear spins as sensors and detectors. She was elected a Fellow of the International Society of Magnetic Resonance in 2019 and president of the International EPR Society in 2020.

References

  1. "Interview in 'Croatian Herald' (29 Jan 2007)" (PDF). separovic.chemistry.unimelb.edu.au. The University of Melbourne.
  2. 1 2 "Professor Frances Separovic". separovic.chemistry.unimelb.edu.au. The University of Melbourne.
  3. "Fellows elected in 2012". sciencearchive.org.au. The Australian Academy of Science. Archived from the original on 14 August 2014.
  4. "Professor Frances Separovic, Chemistry Academic Staff". May 2024.
  5. 1 2 "Frances Separovic 'Bluestocking' sees red about the media treatment of women" (PDF). www.nteu.org.au. NTEU ADVOCAT, vol. 19, no. 3, November 2012.
  6. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 "Frances Separovic CV" (PDF). separovic.chemistry.unimelb.edu.au. The University of Melbourne.
  7. 1 2 3 4 5 6 "The chemistry of curiosity" (PDF). www.voice.unimelb.edu.au. VOICE The University of Melbourne.
  8. "Society Awards - the Biophysical Society".
  9. "Victorian Honour Roll of Women". 12 July 2019.
  10. "Redmond Barry Distinguished Professor". 18 December 2020.
  11. "Professor Frances Separovic". honours.pmc.gov.au. Retrieved 10 June 2019.
  12. "Croatian women leaders and innovators from around the world awarded". 10 March 2024.
  13. "Frances Separovic, une Docteur Honoris Causa au service de la science et de la promotion des femmes".

]