In the brain, some proteins determine when animals reproduce. In foods, others determine whether a coeliac will have a bad reaction. Professor Michelle Colgrave is sorting out the goodies from the baddies.

In her last role, founding and heading the Australian operation of 350.org, and her current endeavour as climate editor at Climate & Capital Media, Palese and her colleagues have spearheaded one of the most effective strategies yet against climate change – convincing investors that putting their money behind fossil fuel companies is a bad idea.

A lifelong love of solving puzzles led Dr Jingmei Li into a career searching for new ways to prevent the most common cancer in women.

In her last role, founding and heading the Australian operation of 350.org, and her current endeavour as climate editor at Climate & Capital Media, Palese and her colleagues have spearheaded one of the most effective strategies yet against climate change – convincing investors that putting their money behind fossil fuel companies is a bad idea.

For someone with her head in the stars, Professor Lisa Harvey-Smith is remarkably grounded. This internationally acclaimed astrophysicist, writer and communicator is Australia’s first Women in STEM ambassador, leading government efforts to encourage women and girls to study and work in science, technology, engineering and maths. It’s a role that also aims to eliminate entrenched gender bias in the research sector.

Google the term ‘polar explorer’ and you’ll turn up a list of men – names such as Ernest Shackleton, James Clark Ross, Robert Falcon Scott, Fridtjof Nansen. Canadian geoscientist, journalist and polar explorer Susan R. Eaton, is challenging that paradigm.

“The burden of chronic disease is a pandemic that is threatening not only the health and wellbeing of the world but its economic wellbeing as well.”

Ronika Power had her own mortuary when she was growing up. “I was one of those children who displayed an interest in things that others might flag as being a concern,” she admits. “I was obsessed with death from when I was very young, from two perspectives: firstly, as a biological imperative, understanding that every living thing eventually will die; and secondly, as a cultural imperative, understanding how different communities across the world integrated death into their beliefs and practices.”

Toby Walsh notes that there may be as few as 10,000 PhDs in AI globally. “I think that’s a really important observation for the world to understand,” he says. “There are few revolutions that can change the planet that are driven by such a small number of people.

More than 75% of the Earth’s oceans remain unmapped, unobserved, and unexplored. Dr Jyotika Virmani, Director of the Schmidt Ocean Institute, is on a mission to enable scientists to embark on voyages of discovery.

Children with limb differences will need at least 10 replacement limbs by the time they reach the age of 20, putting prosthetics well out of reach for many families. At about $2,500 each, the prosthetic bionic limbs developed by Cure Bionics come in at a fraction of the cost of the usual options.