Events

The Grimwade Medal Oration will be hosted by the Department of Biochemistry and Pharmacology at the Bio21 Molecular Science and Biotechnology Institute.

The Grimwade Medal for 2026 will be presented to Professor Abby Dernburg,  Professor of Cell Biology, Development and Physiology at the University of California, Berkeley, and member of the prestigious US National Academy of Sciences.

The Dernburg Lab uses genetics, microscopy, genome editing, and genome-wide mapping to understand the mechanisms that ensure faithful chromosome segregation during meiosis. They also seek to understand how meiosis contributes to genome stability and evolution.

Abby Dernburg will describe how advances in microscopy are revealing an unexpected diversity of materials and membraneless compartments within cells. Her lab discovered that the synaptonemal complex—a structure that assembles between paired chromosomes during meiosis—is a liquid crystalline material that can transmit signals along chromosomes. This discovery has reshaped our understanding of how chromosomes communicate over long distances and how cells control the exchange of genetic information to ensure faithful chromosome inheritance while generating diversity from one generation to the next.

The Grimwade Medal funded by the Russell and Mab Grimwade Miegunyah Fund has been a significant supporter of academic activity at the University of Melbourne. The Grimwade Medal aims to promote the discipline of biochemistry and molecular biology by inviting a stellar researcher each year to visit the University.

Registrations for this event are essential. Click on “Book Now” (top left)

The changing landscape of criminal responsibility of children in Australia

2026 Peter Brett Memorial Lecture

The criminal responsibility of children is a highly charged and tangled issue.

Debates about the age at which children should be able to be held criminally responsible and on what basis such a determination can be made have intensified in recent years throughout Australia.

This lecture will delve into these debates concerning what the minimum age of criminal responsibility (MACR) should be and whether there should continue to be a rebuttable presumption that older children are not criminally responsible (at common law called the presumption of doli incapax). This will include issues such as:

• how the MACR and presumption of doli incapax developed in Australia;
• what changes have been made to the MACR in recent years;
• what the implications are of different MACRs (and ‘carve-outs’) applying across Australia;
• how the presumption of doli incapax currently operates in practice;
• why the presumption of doli incapax is subject to criticism;
• what changes have been made to the presumption of doli incapax in Victoria and New South Wales, and;
• what the future holds for the criminal responsibility of children.

About the lecture series

Peter Brett (1918-1975), appointed Senior Lecturer at the Law School in 1955, Reader in 1961, Hearn Professor of Law at the University of Melbourne from 1963 to 1964 and Professor of Jurisprudence from 1964 until his death, was distinguished by both his scholarship in criminal law and legal philosophy, and his determination to contest injustice in the courts. He was one of the group of lawyers who stopped the hanging of Paul Tait in 1962, creating a landmark in the history of capital punishment in Australia.