Research

The ability to quickly diagnosis infectious agents in field will lead to better treatment and management decisions in real-time. We will take advantage of new innovative gene amplification technology termed loop-mediated isothermal amplification.

LAMP assay amplifies nucleic acid by use of six primers and strand-displacing DNA polymerase which requires only a single temperature. This technology has significant advantage in being of high sensitivity, specificity, rapidity and robust to use in the field by non-specialized personally. The high sensitivity of LAMP enables detection of the pathogens in sample material without time-consuming preparation thus being able to detect pathogens within 30 min.

We are developing a range of LAMP assays and associated sampling technologies to rapidly identify infectious agents in-field. We are working with Australian biotechnology company Geneworks to commercialize these assays for purchase by various Agriculture industries. The strength of our research is we complete a full sampling and validation of our LAMP assays in the field.

Current projects:

• Development of LAMP assays for several agriculture industries in partnership with Geneworks

AB5 toxins are an important family of toxins that cause massive global morbidity and mortality, in humans and livestock. AB5 toxins exert their effects in a two-step process: (i) binding of the pentameric B subunit to specific glycan receptors on the target cell surface; (ii) internalisation of the AB5 toxin, followed by A subunit-mediated inhibition or corruption of essential host functions. The above AB5 toxins ultimately act on cytosolic targets, and so must be internalised, transported to the appropriate site and translocated across the respective organelle membrane. The AB5 toxins from each sub-family possess unique properties that arise from differing catalytic activities of the A subunit and/or differing receptor specificities of the B subunit.

Current projects:

• Understanding the structure and function of several novel AB5 toxins
• Use of AB5 toxins as potential mucosal vaccine adjuvants

Glycoconjugates cover the cell surface of all kingdoms of life, including viruses. Glycoconjugates are important as they can influence range of cellular functions such as cell growth, cell-cell interactions, immune defense, inflammation, viral and microbial infection. As such glycans play important roles in the pathogenesis of in range of pathogenic infections. The role of glycans in bacterial-host interactions is to produce proteins such as lectins, adhesins or toxins that attach to host's glycans that enable the bacteria to invade host tissues to cause disease. While in parasitic worms the role of glycans is more complex, they also produce lectins that enable disease progression but also their cell surface glycans perform important roles in immune evasion.

Conversely, Mammalian innate immunity carries a substantial burden of the defense function against pathogens and, therefore, it has evolved a range of receptors to detect these pathogens and defeat them. These receptors are termed pattern recognition receptors (PRR) which bind microbial surface molecules such as LPS and peptidoglycan in the process of non-self recognition. In particular, a range of lectins, a large family of proteins that bind glycans such as dectin-1 and mannose-binding protein are PRRs. However, mammalian hosts also express several lectins such as selectins and siglec that recognize self-glycans to tether leukocytes to endothelium and regulate signaling in leukocytes. Recently it has become increasingly clear that there are several lectins that cannot be exclusively segregated into lectins that recognize self or non-self glycans. This paradox highlights how little we know about host lectin repertoire. Our knowledge of the structural and biophysical aspects of host and pathogen glycan moieties and their interactions is fragmentary and warrants further investigation to understand their role in innate immunity.

Current projects:

• Interactions of innate immune receptor lectins in host-parasite interactions
• Determination of N-glycome of Fasciola heptica

Medicines derived from plants have a long history of improving our quality of life and, with the development of new technologies and capabilities, we are just at the beginning of what can be achieved.

To improve the yield of bioactive compounds, the various enzymes involve in the biosynthetic pathways will be characterized at protein level using a range techniques such as X-ray crystallography, enzymology, site-directed mutagenesis and proteomics. The ultimate aim is to increase the yield of the targeted bioactive compound in the plant.

Current projects:

• Biochemistry of various cannabis biosynthetic pathways

Microalgae as a protein production and drug delivery platform has the potential to make the revolutionize livestock industry by solving many of the existing technical and commercial challenges with oral vaccines. Algae are generally recognized as safe (GRAS) means algae can be safely used as an animal feed additive. As recognized in plant production systems, recombinant proteins made using algae can be produced with less capital input, and no risk of contamination with animal pathogenic agents. In addition, the commercial-scale production of microalgae is already feasible. Moreover, microalgae are a natural part of the fish diet and an essential nutrient source for many commercially harvested fish species. They are a rich source of natural antimicrobial compounds, immunostimulants, and other essential nutrients.