© Pint of Science, 2026. All rights reserved.
What happens when two computational scientists and a virologist walk into a bar? Come along and find out the surprising ways termites influence our climate, new cancer treatments for the iconic Tassie devil, and how molecular modelling is being used to uncover the origins of life itself…
A devilish solution for treating cancer in Tasmanian devils
Dr Anjali Gowripalan
(Anjali is a keen virologist, research fellow and lecturer at the John Curtin School of Medical Research at the ANU. She completed her PhD in Sydney, where she studied how DNA viruses distort the cells they infect, before moving to New York to research HIV-1 virus fitness. Since returning to Australia, her work has focused on developing poxvirus-based therapies and vaccines, including recent efforts to help Tasmanian devils fight facial tumours.)
Tasmanian devils suffer from a deadly infectious cancer that is nearly always fatal. Despite the severity of this disease, there is no effective treatment. However, cancer vaccines developed for humans may unlock new options for affected devils. In our lab, we study how vaccine viruses target and destroy devil tumour cells while leaving healthy cells unharmed, in the hope of saving one of our most iconic marsupials.
Tiny engineers, big impact: How termites shape our climate
Dr Umar Farooq
(Umar is a researcher at CSIRO working on soil biogeochemistry and ecosystem modelling. His work combines field data and models to better understand links between ecosystems and climate.)
Termites are tiny ecosystem engineers with a surprisingly big influence on soils and greenhouse gases. In this talk, I’ll explore how they shape soil health, carbon storage, and methane emissions. Using new modelling tools and Australian field data, we uncover how these often‑overlooked insects can influence ecosystems, climate, and the planet’s carbon balance.
Prebiotic networks and primitive compartments in the emergence of the RNA world
Dr Josh Brown
(I am an early career researcher with CSIRO. My work encompasses using various physics-based modelling methods to understand battery electrolytes, metal binding proteins and more recently prebiotic origins of life.)
Life did not begin with fully formed cells, but with interacting chemical systems that gradually organised into something capable of evolution. Understanding these pre-biology processes presents a multiscale problem that bridges the different size and time scales of chemistry and biophysics. To address this my research uses multiscale biomolecular simulation to conduct strategic interdisciplinary investigation with experimental collaborators.
Origins of Life: Experiment #1.6 / Adam Brown, Bob Root-Bernstein via Flickr
Map data © OpenStreetMap contributors.