Find an expert

Scott Beatson is an Associate Professor and NHMRC Career Development Fellow at The University of Queensland (UQ). He specializes in bacterial pathogenomics: using whole-genome sequencing to investigate transmission, pathogenesis and antibiotic resistance in bacteria. Recent work from his group includes genomic analyses of pandrug resistant enterobacteriaceae and the multidrug resistant Escherichia coli ST131 pandemic clone. He was awarded a PhD from UQ for his work in bacterial pathogenesis in 2002 and developed his career in bacterial genomics in the United Kingdom with the support of fellowships from the Royal Commission for the Exhibition of 1851 (University of Oxford) and the UK Medical Research Council (University of Birmingham). Since returning to Australia he has held fellowships from both the NHMRC and ARC and has led a successful research group in the School of Chemistry and Molecular Biosciences at UQ since 2008. He is also a member of the Australian Infectious Diseases Research Centre and the Australian Centre for Ecogenomics. In 2016 he received the Frank Fenner Award from the Australian Society for Microbiology in recognition of his contribution to microbiology research in Australia.

Dr Chan has a PhD in Genomics and Computational Biology from UQ. He underwent postdoctoral training at Rutgers University (USA) in algal genomics and evolution. He returmed to UQ in late 2011 as one of the inaugural Great Barrier Reef Foundation Bioinformatics Fellows.

Dr Chan joined the School of Chemistry and Molecular Biosciences in 2020 as a group leader at the Australian Centre for Ecogenomics (ACE). His group uses advanced computational approaches to study genome evolution and develop scalable approaches for comparative genomics.

An ecologist by training – I hold a B.Sc. (Hons) in Marine Ecology from the University of North Carolina, Wilmington and a Ph.D. in Ecological Modelling from Griffith University. I am broadly interested in exploring new ways to (1) understand how natural communities are formed and (2) predict how they will change over time. As an Amplify Fellow at UQ, my current research focuses on developing computational tools and adapting techniques from epidemiology and statistical forecasting to study how organisms and ecosystems respond to environmental change. This work is being applied to investigate natural dynamics for a range of natural systems including host-parasite interactions, wildlife populations and veterinary diseases.

I am an active member of the R community and have written and/or maintain several popular R packages. For example, I’m a lead developer on the MRFcov package for multivariate conditional random fields analyses. I also wrote the mvgam R package for fitting dynamic Generalised Additive Models to analyse and forecast multivariate ecological time series, and I regularly provide training seminars and workshops to help researchers learn techniques in ecological data analysis.

I am currently seeking Honours and PhD candidates with interests and/or skills in veterinary epidemiology, spatial / spatiotemporal modeling and quantitative ecology.

Evolutionary and ecological genomics of marine invertebrate animals.

Animals evolve because their genomes need to respond to the constantly changing environment presented by both their external habitat and their internal microbial symbionts. Over evolutionary time, these different factors interact during development, when the animal body plan is being established, to generate the extraordinary animal diversity that graces our planet. In ecological time, early life history stages must detect and respond to the precise nature of their environment to generate a locally-adapted functional phenotype. Using coral reef invertebrates from phyla that span the animal kingdom, we study these gene-environment interactions using genomic, molecular and cellular approaches combined with behavioural ecology in natural populations. We work mostly with embryonic and larval life history stages of indirect developers, as these are crucial to the survival, connectivity, and evolution of marine populations. When not immersed in the molecular or computer lab, we are lucky enough to be immersed in the ocean, often in beautiful places!

Plant viruses and horticultural crop improvement

Dr Dietzgen is internationally recognised for his work on plant virus characterisation, detection and engineered resistance. Before joining UQ, Dr Dietzgen was a Science Leader in Agri-Science in the Queensland Department of Employment, Economic Development and Innovation. He previously held research positions at the University of Adelaide, University of California, Cornell University and University of Kentucky. Dr Dietzgen’s research interests are in molecular virus-plant-insect interactions, virus biodiversity and evolution, and disease resistance mechanisms. His focus is on the biology of RNA viruses in the family Rhabdoviridae and the molecular protein interactions of plant-adapted rhabdoviruses and tospoviruses. He has published extensively on plant virus characterisation and genetic variability, RNAi- mediated virus resistance and diagnostic technologies with 20 review articles and book chapters and over 65 peer-reviewed publications.

The molecular evolution of cytochrome P450 Enzymes: biological catalysts of unprecedented versatility.

Cytochrome P450 enzymes (CYPs, P450s) especially those responsible for drug metabolism in humans, are the unifying theme of the research in our lab. These fascinating enzymes are catalysts of exceptional versatility, and functional diversity. In humans they are principally responsible for the clearance of a practically unlimited variety of chemicals from the body, but are also critical in many important physiological processes. In other organisms (plants, animals, bacteria, fungi, almost everything!) they carry out an unprecedented range of functions, such as defense, chemical communication, neural development and even pigmentation. P450s are involved in the biosynthesis of an unequalled range of potent, biologically active natural products in microbes, plants and animals, including many antibiotics, plant and animal hormones, signalling molecules, toxins, flavours and fragrances. We are studying how P450s have evolved to deal with novel substrates by reconstructing ancestral precursors and evolutionary pathways, to answer such questions as how did the koala evolve to live on eucalyptus leaves, a toxic diet for most mammals.

The capabilities of P450s are only just coming to be fully recognized and structural studies on P450s should yield critical insights into how enzyme structure determines function. For example, recently we discovered that P450s are present within cells in the Fe(II) form, a finding that has led to a radical revision of the dogma concerning the P450 catalytic cycle, and has implications for the control of uncoupling of P450 activity in cells. Importantly, the biotechnological potential of P450s remains yet to be exploited. All of the specific research themes detailed below take advantage of our recognized expertise in the expression of recombinant human cytochrome P450 enzymes in bacteria. Our group is interested in finding out how P450s work and how they can be made to work better.

Artificial evolution of P450s for drug development and bioremediation: a way of exploring the sequence space and catalytic potential of P450s. The demonstrated catalytic diversity of P450 enzymes makes them the ideal starting material for engineering sophisticated chemical reagents to catalyse difficult chemical transformations. We are using artificial (or directed) evolution to engineer enzymes that are more efficient, robust and specialized than naturally occurring enzymes with the aim of selecting for properties that are commercially useful in the areas of drug discovery and development and bioremediation of pollutants in the environment. The approach we are using also allows us to explore the essential sequence and structural features that underpin all ~12000 known P450s so as to determine how they work.

Synthetic biology of enzymes for clean, green, solar-powered chemistry in drug development, bioremediation and biosensors. We have identified ancestral enzymes that are extremely thermostable compared to their modern counterparts, making them potentially very useful in industry, since they can withstand long incubations at elevated temperatures. They can be used as ‘off the shelf’ reagents to catalyse useful chemistry, such as in in drug discovery and development, fine chemicals synthesis, and cleaning up the environment. Working with drug companies, we are exploring how they can be best deployed in chemical processes and what structural features make them efficient, robust and specialized. We are also immobilizing P450s in virus-like-particles as ‘designer’ reagents that can be recovered from reactions and reused. To make such processes cheaper and more sustainable, we are using photosynthesis to power P450 reactions for clean, green biocatalysis in microalgae.

Biosketch:

After graduating from UQ with first class Honours in Biochemistry, Elizabeth took up a Royal Commission for the Exhibition of 1851 Overseas Scholarship to pursue doctoral work at Oxford University then undertook postdoctoral work at the Center in Molecular Toxicology and Department of Biochemistry at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine with Prof. F.P. Guengerich. She returned to UQ in 1993 to take up a position in Pharmacology and joined the School of Chemistry and Molecular Biosciences in 2009 as a Professor of Biochemistry.

I completed a PhD in Neuroscience with Jack Pettigrew (FRS) at Vision, Touch & Hearing Research Centre followed by an NHMRC Clinical Research Fellowship at Alfred Health & Monash University.

Back in QLD I'm continuing a transdisciplinary research & innovation program to Bring Discoveries of the Brain to Life!

I'm currently focused on developing novel MedTech Biotech diagnostics & therapeutics for enhancing human performance, recovery & resilience with the following projects:

[1] Precision Pain Medicine — the largest genetic study of persistent (chronic) pain in Australia, in collaboration with QIMR Berghofer & Monash University, aims to identify pharmacogenomics causal pathways for the design of personalised therapeutics & effective early intervention approaches (e.g., screening, education, prevention).

[2] Brain Switcha — A digital transdiagnostic biomarker and cloud-based large-scale population phenotyping & analytics platform to improve early intervention strategies in sleep & mental health conditions (esp. at-risk youth cohorts) and recruitment screening for Defence forces.

[3] VCS — vestibulocortical stimulation: A simple, inexpensive, non-invasive & non-pharmacologic neurotherapeutic treatment technique for fibromyalgia (with US colleagues) and other centralised pain syndromes, sleep apnoea, dementia & mental health conditions (e.g., depression, PTSD, bipolar disorder).

I also have >5 years professional services experience providing specialist research performance evaluation, consultation, reporting & training workshops that successfully delivered several major strategic priorities to a large internal & external client base — such as organisational unit leaders/managers at multiple levels (e.g., Centre/Department) and senior executive business missions for national/international strategic partnerships. This work includes mapping, monitoring & benchmarking of research capacity, capabilities/strengths, gaps & collaboration networks (e.g., clinical, corporate & government) across diverse disciplines for Annual & Septennial Departmental Reviews (e.g., patent, policy & clinical guideline citations; external stakeholder engagement including media); ARC Engagement & Impact assessments; and workforce capability development (e.g., recruitment for senior leadership positions and ranking of NHMRC/ARC funding applicants).

In particular, I enjoy meeting & connecting people with a shared vision & commitment towards building innovative & sustainable public-private partnerships to deliver meaningful solutions for the wider community.

Dr Shapter's background was originally in Agricultural Science and higher education which evolved to the completion of her PhD in molecular genetics in 2008. Prior to her current appointments she was the senior researcher on ARC linkage, Australian Flora Foundation and RIRDC research grants looking at the genetic foundations of domestication and adaptation in Australian native grasses. She supervised two HDR students and has a strong publication record in this field. Her research interests centre on identifying and developing practical applications for gene sequencing. Fran is passionate about teaching and has worked as a facilitator commercially and trained early career researchers and PhD candidates in Project Management, IP and commercialisation and Leadership. She was a participant in the 2020 summit and was appointed to the federal advisory Rural R&D Council in 2009. Dr Shapter was also a sitting member of the Office of the Gene Technology Regulator's Ethics and Community Consultative Committee, 2016-2020.

Fran began tutoring at the UQ School of Veterinary Science in 2011, in large animal production, parasitology and microbiology. Since then she has held a variety of teaching, research and professional roles based around project management, curriculum design and blended learning design. She was the project manager for a Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) grant which developed 40 vertically and horizontally integrated, online, adaptive tutorials for veterinary science students and was co-author on the manual developed by this project. She assisted with the development of a new flexible delivery laboratory animal science course in 2015 and delivers 5 weeks of online learning units into this course currently. She has been part of the SoTL research and evaluation associated with both these projects and has reported outcomes at University showcases annually since 2016.

In 2017 Fran became the new Student Clinical Skills Hub Coordinator, a purpose-built, state-of-the-art self-directed learning facility for students of veterinary science. Whilst undertaking this role student usage, resource availability and online support for the Hub has increased more than tenfold. Fran's aim is to provide a safe, authentic, self-directed learning environment where students can practice their clinical skills in accordance with individual competences, beyond the scheduled contact hours of their programs and further enhance their capacity for self-directed, lifelong learning whilst acknowledging the vast array of qualifications, previous training, life experience and cultural backgrounds each student brings with them to the Hub.In 2020 Fran recieved a UQ Teaching Excellence Award due to the demonstarted impact of the SVS Student Clinical Skills Hub.

In 2019 Fran was appointed as a Lecturer in Veterinary Science, while continuing her role as the Hub's coordinator. She continues to maintain her teaching roles into the veterinary program in animal handling, animal production, reproduction, microbiology, parasitology and plant identification. Fran has an additional role in the School with regard to asissting with the design, development and integration of blended learning resources, after working with the Science faculties blended learning design team in 2018. However her SoTL portfolio is best showcased by the development of the online learning community and training resources she has developed for the Student Clinical Skills Hub. As of June 2021, Fran has also taken on the role of the School of Veterinary Science Honours Program Coordinator.

I have a keen interest in the evolutionary relationships that underpin symbioses, particularly those involved in plant disease. There are countless examples of how diseases have impacted on different crops throughout history, and this is an ongoing issue that deleteriously impacts food security. My research involves developing a better understanding of the epidemiology of plant diseases and pests, and delivering improved diagnostics and field management. Working with collaborators and international experts, my work involves research on a broad range of plants that are affected by bacteria, fungi, oomycetes and viruses. I have a strong interest in the biotic factors that govern soil health and the methods by which we can promote the development of beneficial microbial communities.