Research School of Biology

Newsletter
Issue 158 | May 2024

From the Director Investigators: David Collings (Mathesius Group,

PS), Ulrike Mathesius (PS), Volker Nock (University
Dear all of Canterbury, NZ), Ayelen Tayagui (University of
Canterbury, NZ)
Just short message from me this time as I’m currently
travelling (on external funds). Is it possible that a highly prominent anatomical
feature, found in the roots of many plant species,
Another semester of high-quality teaching has just
can have no demonstrated functions despite being
wrapped up, with final assessments still to come in
discovered more than a century ago? In the case of phi
many courses. Research-led teaching, and the original
thickening networks (PTNs), the surprising answer is
research that enables it, is core business for RSB and
yes!
I want to thanks all those involved, especially course
conveners and the BTLC team. PTNs form from narrow bands of stiff, secondary cell
wall that loop around the radial walls of cortical cells
I’m sure you are all now aware that we are facing
in plant roots, a location that textbooks suggest should
significant new constraints on our budget due to the
only have a thin primary wall. While PTNs have been
broader University deficit. The settings to which we
suggested to mechanically strengthen the growing
must respond have been changing almost weekly
root, this remains untested. We have developed an in
and exactly how much we have to cut from our 2024
vitro system in which Brassica roots induce PTNs when
budget is still to be determined. Our priorities are to
exposed to the hormone jasmonic acid. This system will
pay staff salaries and HDR stipends and to minimise
allow us to directly test the biomechanical properties
impact on our HDR students and teaching. Otherwise, I
of PTNs, and to quantify whether PTNs increase the
have proposed to Faculty some ways to cut non-salary
mechanical strength of the growing root allowing
spending and we will have further discussions in the
better soil penetration. Additionally, we will also use
2nd half of June. To the extent possible I will keep all
our system to further characterise the biochemical
informed as we move along and I hope we can deal with and molecular pathways through which Brassica PTNs
this in a collegial way. develop.
Craig Mitzy Pepper (Keogh Group, E&E) - How did the spread
of Australia's deserts impact the genomic diversity of
Welcome arid zone lizards?
Welcome to Chenke Zhang (Jennions Investigators: Mitzy Pepper (Keogh Group, E&E)
Group, E&E) who has started her PhD Australia's vast arid zone has been a focal point for
in E&E co-supervised by Michael understanding how climatic changes shaped the
Jennions (E&E) and Megan Head evolution of its unique biodiversity. During the Last
(E&E). Chenke will begin by working Glacial Maximum (LGM) 18,000 years ago, much of
out why males sometimes stick the continent was a harsh, unrecognizable landscape,
together when they want to find a posing significant challenges for the persistence of
female to mate, even though this desert dwelling organisms. I have just been awarded
increases the likelihood that they share paternity. a research grant from the Hermon Slade Foundation
to generate high quality reference genomes of arid
Grants awarded zone lizards to better understand their demographic
Eric Mirindi Dusenge (commencing history and evolutionary responses to past climate
with the Atkin Group in 2024, events. With whole genomes from a range of different
PS) and Emily Roycroft (Moritz arid species, and employing advanced demographic
Group, E&E) were awarded J G inference techniques, my project seeks to uncover
Russell Awards from the Australian how the dramatic environmental changes of the
Academy of Science valued at LGM influenced the incredible lizard biodiversity in
$6,970 and $7,000 respectively. Australia’s deserts.

Olga M. Azevedo (Sequeira Group, E&E) was awarded a

Lerner-Gray Grant for Marine Research by the American
Congratulations
Museum of Natural History valued at $USD 3000. Congratulations to Emily Roycroft (Moritz Group, E&E)
who was awarded the 2024 Alan Wilton Award from the
David Collings (PS) and Mitzy Pepper (E&E) were both Genetics Society of AustralAsia. The award recognises
awarded a 2024 Hermon Slade Foundation Grant from outstanding contributions to the field of genetics
the Hermon Slade Foundation valued at $41,900 and research by an Australasian scientist early in their
$58,325 respectively, see their project summaries career.
below.
Two RSB PhD students have won first prizes (and
David Collings (Mathesius Group, PS) - Bioengineering hearts!) at the Canberra RNA Emerging Leaders
a better plant root - do phi thickenings make plant roots Symposium held on 20th May 2024 at JCSMR.
stronger? Congratulations to Rebeccah Tyrrell (Pogson Group, PS)
and Viktor Makota (van Dooren Group, BSB) for winning radio, print and online. Tune in to the April 21st Healthy
the best 6-minute rapid-fire talk and poster Living podcast by 2GB Sydney to hear more.
presentation, respectively. Naomi Langmore's (E&E) new
publication features in the article
What’s that in my nest? How the
evolutionary arms race between
cuckoos and hosts creates new
species by The Conversation. The
publication was a team effort
involving current and former RSB
members including , Alex Skeels
(Cardillo Group, E&E), Iliana
Medina (previously Langmore
Group, E&E), Hee-Jin Noh (previously Langmore Group,
E&E), Alicia Grealy (previously Langmore Group, E&E),
Kevin Murray (previously Pogson Group, PS) and John
Grant.

Obituary
Vale Adrian Horridge, A Man of Many Accomplishments
Adrian Horridge, one of the
Foundation Professors of what
was then the Research School of
Organized by the members of the ACT RNA Club Biological Sciences, died on April
Organizing Committee, a collaborative effort spanning 30, age 96. He has summarised
the RNA research community across Canberra, his career in considerable detail
including the RSB and JCSMR at ANU, CSIRO, and on Wikipedia, so I will spend only a
the University of Canberra, this event witnessed an short paragraph on his career and
outstanding enthusiasm of the next generation of RNA another on some of the many stories
trailblazers! about him.

PhDs awarded Adrian started at Cambridge as an

undergraduate in 1946 and stayed on to do a PhD. He
Scott Ferguson (Borevitz Group, PS) Investigation describes the experience as follows, “As a research
into the genome evolution of the genus Eucalyptus, student in Cambridge in those days, you stood up
and assessing and improving real accuracies of Oxford alone and stood on your own feet, then you walked
Nanopore long-read Sequencing. or preferably ran. You found yourself your own topic,
searched the literature, and somebody who would
Carl McCombe (Williams Group, PS) Functional
supervise you.” This experience stood him in good
characterisation of Nudix hydrolase effectors from
stead later in life, as he was never one to shrink from
phytopathogenic fungi.
a challenge. From Cambridge he became a highly
Angus Rae (Mathesius Group, PS) thesis title successful Director of the Gatty Marine lab of the
confidential. University of St Andrews from 1960-69. In one of his
famous experiments from this period he demonstrated
Putter Tiatragul (Keogh Group, E&E) thesis title that the ventral nerve cord of a headless cockroach
confidential. could learn a task. In a second he demonstrated, using
Vicky Zhang (Byrt Group, PS) Characterising the electric shocks, that the polyps of a coral colony were
regulatory effects of splice variants of transporters connected by a nerve net. He also co-authored a two
volume work with a famous American neuroscientist,
MPhil awarded Ted Bullock, entitled Structure and Function in the
Nervous System of Invertebrates, that helped to
Simone Babij (Leyton Group, BSB) Understanding cement his reputation. On the basis of his success
collateral sensitivity in the malaria parasite. at the Gatty, in 1969 Adrian was offered one of the
foundation chairs in the newly established Research
News School of Biological Sciences, which he occupied until
his retirement in 1993. In Canberra Adrian quickly built
Ana Sequeira (E&E) spoke with ABC Radio Pilbara
a large and international department, which attracted
about the Gathaagudu Animal Tracking Project and the
scientists from Australia, England, the US, Germany,
dugongs that were satellite tagged in Shark Bay and
and Japan, as shown in the photo below from 1972.
moved close to Carnarvon.
Much of his research in Canberra was on the structure
Hannah Calich (Sequeira Group, E&E) had the and function of the compound eyes of insects. In
opportunity to discuss the impact Jaws had on sharks addition to his own research, during his career he
and answer questions from the public at the Science. supervised or co-supervised 51 PhD students, 8 of
Art.Film. The movie Jaws is well-known for two things, whom went on to become Fellows of the Royal Society.
“man-eating” sharks and a gripping soundtrack (du
Adrian is legendary for many things. While at St
duh… du duh…), and it was only fitting that Hannah was
Andrews he sawed a dual-beam oscilloscope in half to
joined on the panel by Professor Kenneth Lampl from
create two oscilloscopes. He was also famous for his
the ANU School of Music.
imitation of a dancing bee when he lectured on
Ben Corry's (BSB) research on 'Force-sensing' proteins communication in honeybees. One of his secrets for
has been widely reported on across outlets such as attracting PhD students was to have a workshop where,

NEWSLETTER | May 2024

in addition to working on equipment for their (University of Florida)
experiments, they could work on their cars. So, in the
Ferguson S, Jones A, Murray KD, Bothwell H,
early days he had a lathe and a drill press in H block at
Schwessinger B, Borevitz J et al. Exploring the role
ANU and he later fought hard to have an experimental
of polymorphic interspecies structural variants in
workshop for academics in the Robertson building,
reproductive isolation and adaptive divergence in
something that would almost certainly be banned on
Eucalyptus. GigaScience. https://doi.org/10.1093/
OHS grounds today.
gigascience/giae029.
Fukuda Y, Moritz C, FitzSimmons NN et al. Natal
origin and dispersal of problem saltwater crocodiles
in the Darwin Harbor, Australia. Journal of Wildlife
Management. https://doi.org/10.1002/jwmg.22525.
Liang W, Nunes R, Leong JV, Braby MF et al. To and
fro in the archipelago: repeated inter-island dispersal
and New Guinea’s orogeny affect diversification of
Delias, the world’s largest butterfly genus. Molecular
Phylogenetics and Evolution. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.
ympev.2024.108022.
Liao C-C, Magrath RD, Manser MB & Farine DR.
The relative contribution of acoustic signals versus
One characteristic of Adrian throughout his life was movement cues in group coordination and collective
that he appeared to wear the same knitted jumper decision-making. Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B https://doi.
throughout his time in Canberra, as will be apparent org/10.1098/rstb.2023.0184.
if you compare his appearance in the attached photo
from 1972 with recent photos on Wikipedia. In fact, the Potter S, Moritz C, Piggott MP, McDonald-Spicer C et
jumper is a very old pattern still knitted by one family in al. Museum Skins Enable Identification of Introgression
Scotland. Associated with Cytonuclear Discordance, Systematic
Biology. https://doi.org/10.1093/sysbio/syae016.
Obituary written by Eldon Ball (E&E).
Pulsford SB, Outram MA, Forster B, Rhodes T,
Papers Williams S, Badger MR, Price GD, Jackson CJ et al.
Cyanobacterial α-carboxysome carbonic anhydrase
Bandyopadhyay T, Maurya J, Bentley AR et al. is allosterically regulated by the Rubisco substrate
Identifying the mechanistic basis to nitrogen RuBP. Science Advances. https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.
responsiveness in two contrasting Setaria italica adk7283.
accessions. Journal of Experimental Botany. https://doi.
Title PO, Singhal S, Grundler MC, Moritz C et al. The
org/10.1093/jxb/erae204.
macroevolutionary singularity of snakes. Science.
Braby MF, Hsu Y-F & Lamas G. How to describe a new https://doi.org/10.1126/science.adh2449.
species in zoology and avoid mistakes. Zoological
Ubierna N, Holloway-Phillips M-M, Wingate L, Farquhar
Journal of the Linnean Society. https://doi.org/10.1093/
GD et al. Using Carbon Stable Isotopes to Study C3
zoolinnean/zlae043.
and C4 Photosynthesis: Models and Calculations.
Carvalho AP, Owens HL, St Laurent RA, Braby, M.F et Photosynthesis: Methods and Protocols. https://doi.
al. Comprehensive phylogeny of Pieridae butterflies org/10.1007/978-1-0716-3790-6_10.
reveals strong correlation between diversification and
Smith OB, Frkic RL, Rahman MG, Jackson CJ &
temperature. iScience.
Kaczmarski JA. Identification and characterization
Chan AHY, Ho TCS, Fathoni I, Saliba KJ et al. Evaluation of a bacterial periplasmic solute binding protein that
of ketoclomazone and its analogues as inhibitors of binds L-Amino Acid Amides. Biochemistry. https://doi.
1-deoxy-D-xylulose 5-phosphate synthases and other org/10.1021/acs.biochem.4c00096.
thiamine diphosphate (ThDP)- dependent enzymes.
Williams A, Luo R, Smith OB, Murphy L, Schwessinger
RSC Medicinal Chemistry. https://doi.org/10.1039/
B & Brock J. High-throughput optimisation of protein
D4MD00083H
secretion in yeast via an engineered biosensor. bioRxiv.
Chen L, Ghannoum O, Furbank RT. Sugar sensing in C4 https://doi.org/10.1101/2024.05.15.594099.
source leaves: a gap that needs to be filled. Journal of
Zang C, Chung MH, Neeman T, Harrison L, Vinogradov
Experimental. https://doi.org/10.1093/jxb/erae166.
I, Jennions MD. Does losing reduce the tendency to
Chung M-H, Fox RJ & Jennions MD. Male allocation to engage with rivals to reach mates? An experimental
ejaculation and mating effort imposes different life test. Behavioural Ecology. https://doi.org/10.1093/
history trade-offs. PLoS Biology. https://doi. beheco/arae037.
org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3002519.
Zwahlen SM, Hayward JA, Maguire CS, Qin AR & van
Ferguson S, Jones A, Murray K, Dooren GG. A myzozoan-specific protein is an essential
Schwessinger B, Borevitz J et al. membrane anchoring component of the succinate
Plant genome evolution in the dehydrogenase complex in Toxoplasma parasites. Open
genus Eucalyptus is driven by Biology. https://doi.org/10.1098/rsob.230463.
structural rearrangements that
promote sequence divergence.
Genome Research. https://doi.
org/10.1101/gr.277999.123.
Featured as the journal cover art
with collaborating artist and PhD Student Kasey Pham.

NEWSLETTER | May 2024