Staff and Students
Staff and Collaborators
Current Students
Postgraduate Opportunities
Past Students
Staff and Collaborators
Research Staff
Dr Kathy Belov
Kathy studied for her BSc and PhD at Macquarie University in the Department of Biological Sciences before spending 3 years in the Evolutionary Biology Unit of the Australian Museum. In 2005, she was awarded a University of Sydney Postdoctoral Fellowship. She is now a lecturer in Genetics.
Her research interests include:
- Marsupial and monotreme genomics
- Immunogenetics
- Evolution of the adaptive immune system
- MHC diversity and conservation
- Evolutionary genetics
- Marsupial and monotreme immune genes
- Comparative Genomics
- Genetics of Tasmanian Devil facial tumour disease
Collaborators
Dr Jeremy Austin, Adelaide University
Dr Julia Beatty, University of Sydney
Dr Stephan Beck, Sanger Institute
Prof Des Cooper, University of New South Wales
Dr Janine Deakin, Australian National University
Dr Mark Eldridge, Australian Museum
Prof Vanessa Hayes, University of New South Wales
Dr Cathy Herbert, University of Sydney
Dr Damien Higgins, University of Sydney
Dr Menna Jones, University of Tasmania
Dr Mark Krockenberger, University of Sydney
Prof Philip Kuchel, University of Sydney
Prof Rob Miller, University of New Mexico
Prof Stephen O’Brien, Dr Marilyn Raymond and Dr Naoya Yuhki, National Cancer Institute
Dr Tony Papenfuss, WEHI
Dr Stephen Pyecroft, Anne-Maree Pearse and Erin Noonan, Tasmanian Department of Primary Industries
Prof John Trowsdale, Cambridge University
Prof Mike Thompson, University of Sydney
Dr Matthew Wakefield, WEHI
Prof Greg Woods and Alex Kreiss, University of Tasmania
Dr Lauren Young, Central Queensland University
ARC Centre of Excellence for Kangaroo Genomics
Genome projects: Opossum, Platypus, Tammar wallaby
Current Students
| Hannah Siddle (PhD student) is collaborating with Dr Stephan Beck and his team from the Sanger Institute in the UK. She is sequencing the entire MHC of the wallaby using overlapping clones. This project is funded by a large ARC Discovery Grant. Hannah also discovered that Tasmanian devils lack diversity at MHC genes, explaining why DFTD has spread so readily. |  |
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Claire Sanderson (PhD student) has discovered a massive expansion of genes which code for Natural Killer Cell receptors in the platypus. These cells kill cancer cells and cells infected by microorganisms. She is also mapping immune genes in the tammar wallaby. |
| Emily Wong (PhD student) is a bioinformatician. She is using computers to discover highly divergent immune genes in the opossum, platypus and wallaby genomes. Previous attempts to identify these genes in the lab were unsuccessful, but Emily has used statistical models to identify patterns in DNA sequence and found genes which share as little as 30% identity with their human counterparts. |  |
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Sarah Jobbins (PhD student) is working with the Koala Infectious Disease Research group on the genetics of chlamydial disease susceptibility in the koala. She has found low levels of MHC diversity in koalas on Kangaroo and French Islands, raising conservation concerns about these populations. While they seem to be thriving, introduction of a disease onto the islands could have devastating consequences. |
| Camilla Whittington (PhD student) is working on platypus venom. She has discovered that venom molecules in reptiles and the platypus were co-opted independently from the same gene families. Interestingly, one of these gene families codes for anti-microbial peptides. Camilla is now looking at expression of these peptides in wallabies to determine the role they play in protecting immunologically naïve young. |  |
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Bridget Murphy (Honours student) is working on the evolution of viviparity (live birth) in skinks. While viviparity evolved once in mammals (monotremes lay eggs, while marsupials and placentals give birth to live young), viviparity has evolved independently over 100 times in skinks. Bridget is co-supervised by Prof. Mike Thompson from the School of Biological Sciences. |
| Yuanyuan Cheng (Masters student) is developing MHC-linked microsatellite markers to develop a cheaper and quicker method to characterize MHC diversity in the tammar wallaby. |  |
Jennifer Koh (PhD student) is studying various proteins and peptides isolated from the venom of the male platypus. A peptide isomerase, which can post-translationally convert L- to D- amino acid residues, has been purified and kinetically characterised and this is being sequenced. The location of the isomerase in the platpus genome and its cloning and expression is also being studied. This will lead on to investigations into the general disposition of this and other related genes in higher mammals. Her primary supervisor is Prof Philip Kuchel of MMB.
Cherry Wang (PhD student) works on tammar wallaby linkage mapping, map integration and genome comparison. She aims to construct a denser linkage map, integrate the linkage map with physical mapping and sequence data, and build up a virtual wallaby genome by comparison with other species. This integrated map and virtual genome will provide valuable information for further genetic studies in the tammar wallaby. She is also supervised by Prof Frank Nicholas and Dr Matthew Hobbs.
Sarah Michael (Honours student) is studying the genetic variation and immune response in Tammar wallabies. Her project will investigate variation in immune response between inbred, genetically diverse and hybrid populations of the marsupial model, the Tammar wallaby (Macropus eugenii). Small populations with low genetic diversity are believed to be inherently more vulnerable to environmental challenges. It has been suggested that this is linked to depression of immune responsiveness. If this is proven to be correct, we will be able to assess whether intentional hybridisation enhances a component of immune function and therefore 'fitness'. This will have implications for conservation management techniques to improve viability of threatened island populations.
Yolanta Marzec (Honours student) will be analysing DNA samples from healthy 3/4/5 year old wild Tasmanian Devils. Their MHC genes will be studied to determine whether there is anything that makes them resist Devil Facial Tumour Disease. She will also be involved with Tasmanian Devil MHC typing to aid conservation efforts by helping to keep the captive populations genetically diverse.
Melanie Booth
Katrina Morris
Postgraduate Opportunities
If you are interested in a research project in wildlife genetics, please contact Kathy.
Past Students
Jarek Litanik
Karunya Prassad
Yixuan Liu
Takaya Saito
Zijian Zhao
Rachael Woodward (Macquarie)
Mai-Anh Nguyen (Macquarie)