astronomy

Katharina Gaus

Katharina Gaus is a astronomy topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Katharina Gaus rather than just read about it. In short: Katharina Gaus (12 July 1972 – 3 March 2021) was a German-Australian immunologist and molecular microscopist. She was an NHMRC Senior Research Fellow and founding head of the Cellular Membrane Biology Lab, part of the Centre for Vascular Research at the University of New South Wales.

Key takeaways

Katharina Gaus belongs to astronomy; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Katharina Gaus to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Katharina Gaus from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Katharina Gaus (12 July 1972 – 3 March 2021) was a German-Australian immunologist and molecular microscopist. She was an NHMRC Senior Research Fellow and founding head of the Cellular Membrane Biology Lab, part of the Centre for Vascular Research at the University of New South Wales. Gaus used new super-resolution fluorescence microscopes to examine the plasma membrane within intact living cells, and study cell signalling at the level of single molecules to better understand how cells "make decisions". A key discovery of Gaus and her team was how T-cells decide to switch on the body's immune system to attack diseases. Her work is of importance to the development of drugs that can work with T-cells in support of the immune system.

Education Gaus studied physics and mathematics at the University of Heidelberg, Germany and a MPhil (1996) and PhD (1999) from the Institute of Biotechnology at the University of Cambridge. While there she created a biosensor to detect protein-protein interactions and a ligand library, useful as a diagnostic tool.

Career Following her studies at the University of Cambridge, Katharina joined the Cell Biology Group at the Heart Research Institute in Sydney, Australia, led by Roger Dean and Wendy Jessup. Around 2002, she moved with Wendy Jessup's group to the Centre for Vascular Research at the University of New South Wales. She received several fellowships, spending three months of 2001 at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, working with Enrico Gratton before returning to Australia to take up an Australian Research Council postdoctoral fellowship. In 2005 Gaus was awarded an Alexander von Humboldt Research Fellowship and spent six months at the Max Planck Institute for Cell Biology and Genetics in Dresden, Germany, working in the laboratory of Kai Simons. As of 2005, Gaus founded the Cellular Membrane Biology Lab, part of the Centre for Vascular Research at the University of New South Wales. As of 2009 she became a senior research fellow and associate professor of the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) in Australia. Gaus was a member of the Australian Centre for NanoMedicine, founded in 2011, which is based at the University of New South Wales. She was also deputy director and a chief investigator of the ARC Centre of Excellence in Advanced Molecular Imaging. Gaus was active in encouraging girls to enter scientific fields. Gaus was elected Fellow of the Australian Academy of Health and Medical Sciences (FAHMS) in 2015. She died on 3 March 2021 aged 48.

Awards 2013, Elizabeth Blackburn Fellowship – Biomedical 2013 (NHMRC Research Excellence Award) 2013, NSW Science and Engineering Award for Excellence in Biological Sciences, from the New South Wales Government 2012 Gottschalk Medal for outstanding research in the medical sciences, from the Australian Academy of Science 2010, Young Investigator Award from the Australia and New Zealand Society for Cell and Developmental Biology 2005, Tall Poppy Award, encouraging young Australian scientists 2005, ARC Early Researcher Award

References

External links

Katharina Gaus Archived 8 August 2014 at the Wayback Machine page at University of New South Wales Cellular Membrane Biology Lab page at University of New South Wales

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Katharina Gaus

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Katharina Gaus claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In astronomy, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Katharina Gaus before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Katharina Gaus ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Katharina Gaus

In research: Katharina Gaus appears in astronomy research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Katharina Gaus in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Katharina Gaus is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1972 births, 2021 deaths, Academic staff of the University of New South Wales, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Katharina Gaus outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Katharina Gaus in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Katharina Gaus means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Katharina Gaus out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Katharina Gaus in simple terms?

Why does Katharina Gaus matter?

Because it connects several astronomy ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Katharina Gaus?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Katharina Gaus.