Coral’s harbourside move spawns premier award win

I research coral nutrition. Just like you and I, corals need nutrients to thrive and survive. And this is particularly important during the vulnerable life stages like early life stages or when they're experiencing stress. 

So, for example, when corals reproduce, they produce millions of these tiny little babies into the water.

But actually a low percentage, about 1% of those, survive and it's thought because they're not getting the nutrients they need during that early life stage.

So, by understanding their nutrition, we can actually intervene and we created a coral baby food to help boost their um health during these early life stages. And we doubled the survival rate of coral babies.

Coral reefs are vitally important ecosystems, particularly to us in Australia. They provide billions of dollars, millions of jobs. They protect our coastlines and are even an important source for new medicines. For example, medicines for Alzheimer's and cancer have been discovered from corals.

But without our help, coral reefs may not survive this century. So, we need to think of new ways to help protect, restore, and even diagnose coral health if we're going to stand a chance to protect them for next generations to enjoy.

Ultimately, I' I'd love to see coral reefs survive. I'd love to be able to show my kids um take them diving and show them a healthy reef.

And while the reefs may not look like they do today, they may be slightly different in terms of diversity, in terms of structure and composition, I still want corals to be there and that will most likely be the case.

But without interventions, I fear that that will be even worse state. The corals in Australia have immense like cultural value and they're an icon.

If you ask somebody what they think of when they think of Australia, the Great Barrier Reef is most likely one of those  things. And I would be devastated if that wasn't the case in 50 years time.

I am immensely honoured to receive this this prize. I feel like it's not just a testament to um the research that I've done, but all of the research projects that I've been involved in.

It's not just my work that's made this possible. There's work from my fellow researchers and students as well as

citizen scientists and traditional owners and the broader research community.

My research is only as good as the research it's built on. So I can only say thank you and extend this award to everybody who's provided the foundational research that I've built my research upon.