Professor Peter Bergquist PhD D Sc
Peter Bergquist is one of the pioneers of cloning and expressing genes from extremely thermophilic organisms and other extremophiles and has published on the diversity of culturable and unculturable thermophilic bacteria. His particular expertise is in gene cloning and expression, protein-nucleic acid interactions, the polymerase chain reaction and enzyme evolution. He was one of the first persons to clone and express genes from extreme thermophiles in bacteria and yeast.
Peter’s interest in microbial biodiversity was initiated in 1990 with a then novel proposal to clone genes from unculturable micro-organisms as part of a successful bid to the Public Good Science Fund (NZ). This approach resulted from research with Thermus that had shown the influence of culture techniques on the bacteria that could be cultivated from extreme environments.
He developed the genomic walking PCR technique to allow the isolation of genes from culturable and unculturable micro-organisms without the necessity of constructing gene libraries. His work on the multi-domain “megazymes” with bifunctional catalytic activities from anaerobic extreme thermophiles has developed into a study of the specificity of the accompanying non-catalytic domains and their role in substrate binding. He has developed a novel method for enzyme evolution that is conceptually different from others in the field.
Contract Research
He has carried out contract research in the applications of industrial enzymes in the pulp and paper industry with Clariant Biotech R&D Corporation (Lexington, MA) and Gist-brocades (Deft, The Netherlands).
Other contract research has been performed for Gist-brocades (Baking Products Division), Abbott Laboratories (North Chicago, IL), BioRad Corporation (Hercules, CA), Life Technologies Inc (Rockville, MD) and Invitrogen Corp (Carlsbad, CA) and Biogen Inc (Cambridge, MA). He was a research director for Pacific Enzymes Ltd in New Zealand when it was owned by Shell Chemicals (UK). He is currently engaged in contract research developing novel DNA polymerases with Invitrogen Corporation.
Professor Helena Nevalainen B.Sc, M.Sc, Ph.Lic, PhD
Helena Nevalainen is Professor of Biology at Macquarie University and an Adjunct Professor of Genetics at the University of Helsinki. She has been a practising researcher for 25 years. Her current areas of expertise are the development of Trichoderma reesei as an efficient expression host for heterologous gene products; fungal proteomics; molecular prospecting of the environment for novel genes and products; and industrial applications of microbial hydrolases.
Helena is a fully trained research manager with five years experience in biotechnology industry, responsible for strain and product development (50 staff, yearly budget AUD5 million); advisory role in patenting matters. She is currently responsible for several research projects. Helena has also been a research provider for multinational biotech companies based in the USA and in Finland. She currently performs contract research for Roal Oy (Rajamäki, Finland); Sangara Group (Queensland); ARC Collaborative grants with Bureau of Sugar Experimental Stations, Brisbane, Queensland; Extreme Biotech Inc. (Milford, MA.).
Helena is a member of the Academy of Finland as an expert consultant in fungal biotechnology. At the Technical Development Center, Finland she was a member of the Steering Committees for two National programs in biotechnology (1987-1992); At the Association of Microbial Food Enzyme Producers (AMFEP) she was a member of the Ad Hoc 5 Working Party (recombinant organisms) (1989-1992).
Dr Moreland Gibbs
Moreland is a founding scientist at Applimex Pty Ltd. He has a Ph.D in Molecular Biology (1996) and has substantial experience in the field of gene prospecting and recombinant gene expression. His expertise is in gene cloning and protein expression in bacteria and yeast, plasmid shuttle-vector systems, protein-carbohydrate interactions, directed enzyme evolution and characterisation of microbial thermophilic genes and enzymes. He was one of the first people to clone and express genes for large multi-domain proteins from extreme thermophiles and has made a significant contribution to the understanding of thermophilic enzymes including carbohydrate degrading enzymes, carbohydrate binding proteins and DNA polymerases. Most recently, his work has focused on methods for improving recombinant enzymes using directed evolution techniques.
Dr Valentino Setoa Junior Te'o
Junior completed his PhD in the field of Cellular and Molecular Biology at Auckland University, New Zealand, 1996, before moving over to Macquarie University where he has since been working in the area of fungal genetics and biotechnology. So far he has co-supervised six Honours, two Masters, and four visiting internship students. Currently, he is co-supervising three PhD and one Honours students.
His field of research expertise is in molecular cloning and expression of genes from extremophile bacteria and from other sources, and high level recombinant enzyme expression in filamentous fungi such as Trichoderma reesei and Ophiostoma floccosum. His work focuses on the development of fungal expression host systems for the production of biomolecules of industrial importance. These areas include strain improvement, construction of synthetic genes using polymerase chain reaction, gene expression vector design and construction, discovery and improvement of fungal transformation methods, post-transcriptional analysis of gene products, laboratory scale fermentation of T. reesei and O. floccosum recombinant organisms, and proteomics of filamentous fungi.