ANU chemistry researchers have been awarded for their work on an important milk protein, which is leading to a better understanding of the biochemical processes underlying diseases such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's diseases.

Professor John Carver and Dr David Thorn, from the ANU Research School of Chemistry, and other co-authors received a Journal of Dairy Science award for their 2013 paper, which is one of the international journal's most cited articles.

The paper was about milk's main protein casein; these proteins come together to form micelles, which provide a rich source of protein and also scatter light to give milk its white colour.

"Understanding the fundamental basis of casein protein aggregation will have potential benefits in the development of new nutritional dairy products and therapeutics for age-related diseases such as cataracts, Alzheimer's and Parkinson's," Professor Carver said.

"Our work on this paper was highly interdisciplinary, with input from biological, physical and inorganic chemistry and biomedical science."

Dr Carl Holt from the University of Glasgow and Associate Professor Heath Ecroyd from the University of Wollongong are co-authors of the paper.

The review article appeared in the Journal of Dairy Science.

http://www.anu.edu.au/news/all-news/milk-research-paper-receives-interna...