A FORMER Priestley College student has been named one of Australia's most promising young scientists following her work into a cure for malaria.

Alice Williamson, who grew up in Appleton, has been playing a leading role in the world’s search to stop the deadly disease with the Open Source Malaria project.

The 30-year-old added: “We are designing new medicines to tackle malaria and rather than writing down our findings in a secret notebook we publish it all online.

“Anyone can see our findings and not just those who pay for it as happens in some laboratories when big companies are involved.

"It means other scientists around the world can learn from our discoveries and hopefully it will lead to a cure being found sooner.”

The project welcomes contributions from anyone, no matter what their expertise, and is the world’s first completely open drug discovery project.

As the lead experimental chemist for Open Source Malaria, Alice was recently named one of Australia’s top five scientists aged under 40 during a project to find the most promising minds of the next generation with a passion for scientific communication.

During a visit home to see family and former tutors at Priestley College, Alice spoke of the need to remove the veil of secrecy that surrounds a lot of scientific research.

“It was very important to me to be involved in open research because I believe it is the best way to achieve the end results.

“We are not in the lab because we like to mix things together but because we want to make the world a better place."

Jan Costello, director of science, technology, engineering and maths at Priestley, said it was obvious that the former St Gregory's Catholic High pupil was destined for high achievements.

She added: “Alice was an exceptional student who studied a wide-ranging curriculum.

“I’ve enjoyed watching her progress and being able to see the difference she is making in worldwide research leaves me bursting with pride.”

Alice went on to complete a masters in medicinal chemistry at Leeds University and a PhD at Cambridge, during which she designed a new type of chemical reaction, before working in Australia to stop malaria which kills half a million people every year.