Professor Rick Cavicchioli
- Position: Professor
- Room: 309A, Biological Sciences
- Phone: (+61 2) 9385 3516
- Fax: (+61 2) 9385 1483
- email: r.cavicchioli@unsw.edu.au
Professional Experience
- 1991-1994 Dept of Microbiology and Molecular Genetics, UCLA, Postdoctoral Fellow
- 1994-1999 Lecturer; 1999-2003 Senior Lecturer; 2004-2006 Associate Professor, UNSW
- 2005 ongoing: Adjunct Associate Professor/Professor, Center of Marine Biotechnology, Baltimore
Research Contribution
Professor Cavicchioli heads the world’s leading laboratory on the molecular basis for cold adaptation in archaea. He has made seminal contributions to the field of archaeal cold adaptation through studies of archaeal proteins, intracellular solutes, tRNA, lipids, gene regulation, transcriptomics, comparative genomics and proteomics, and to the broader fields of extremophiles, archaeal biology and cold adapted proteins. Important contributions have also been made to the study of oligotrophic marine bacteria with recent work focused on proteomics, comparative genomics and adaptation physiology, particularly cold and nutrient-limitation.
The focus on adaptation of individual archaea and marine bacteria has provided a strong background for genome-based studies of whole ecosystems, particularly cold environments. Genome projects include individual microbial genome (e.g. Methanoccoides burtonii, Methanogenium frigidum, Halorubrum lacusprofundi, Sphingopyxis alaskensis) and metagenome (Vestfold Hills Antarctic lakes; Antarctic Palmer Station; Southern Ocean) projects with the J. Craig Venter Institute and US DOE Joint Genome Institute. The group is credited with the first Australian lead publication of a draft genome sequence. A strong in-house bioinformatics capacity underpins the analysis of large, continually expanding metagenome, and associated functional-omic datasets from the Antarctic and Southern Ocean environments.
The focus on cold and extreme adaptation has served to foster a biotechnology program aimed at developing enzymes with enhanced performances, with applications to a broad range of industries.
Honours & Awards
- 2005 ASM Frank Fenner Research Award
Editor/board: Extremophiles; ISMEJ; Environmental Microbiology; ARC OzReader - 2000 Eureka Prize Finalist
- 1991 Canadian NSERC Postdoctoral Fellowship (award not activated)
- 1991-94 NIH funded Postdoctoral Fellow - UCLA
- Editor/board: Archaea; Extremophiles; Microbes and Environments; ISMEJ ARC OzReader
Active Research Projects
Publications
- Siddiqui, K.S., Parkin, D.M, Curmi, P.M.G., De Francisci, D., Poljak, A., Barrow, K., Noble, M.H., Trewhella, J. and Cavicchioli, R. (2009)
- A novel approach for enhancing the catalytic efficiency of a protease at low temperature: reduction in substrate inhibition by chemical modification.
- Biotechnology and Bioengineering. 103: 676-686
- Cavicchioli, R. and Lauro, F. (2009)
- Effects of climate change on polar microbes.
- Microbiology Australia. 30: 72-74.
- Allen, M., Lauro, F.M., Williams, T.J., Burg, D., Siddiqui, K.S., De Francisci, D., Chong, K.W.Y., Pilak, O., Chew, H.H., De Maere, M.Z., Ting, L., Katrib, M., Ng, C., Sowers, K.R., Galperin, M.Y., Anderson, I.J., Ivanova, N., Dalin, E., Martinez, M., Lapidus, A., Hauser, L., Land, M., Thomas, T. & Cavicchioli, R. (2009)
- The genome sequence of the psychrophilic archaeon, Methanococcoides burtonii: the role of genome evolution in cold-adaptation.
- International Society of Microbial Ecology Journal 3: 1012-1035. (Feature article)
- Matallana-Surget, S., Douki, T., Cavicchioli, R. and Joux, F. (2009)
- Remarkable resistance to UVB of the marine bacterium Photobacterium angustum explained by an unexpected role of photolyase.
- Photochemical and Photobiological Sciences 8: 1313-1320.
- Matallana-Surget, S., Joux, F., Raftery, M.J. and Cavicchioli, R. (2009)
- The response of the marine bacterium Sphingopyxis alaskensis to solar radiation assessed by quantitative proteomics.
- Environmental Microbiology (published on-line July 10)
- Ting, L., Cowley, M.J., Hoon, S.L., Guilhaus, M., Raftery, M.J. and Cavicchioli R. (2009)
- Normalization and statistical analysis of quantitative proteomics data generated by metabolic labeling.
- Molecular and Cellular Proteomics (accepted July 15)
- Lauro, F.M., McDougald, D., Thomas, T., Williams, T.J., Egan, S., Rice, S., DeMaere, M.Z., Ting, L., Ertan, H., Johnson, J., Ferriera, S., Lapidus, A., Anderson, I., Kyrpides, N., Munk, A.C., Detter, C., Brown, M.V., Robb, F.T., Kjelleberg, S. and Cavicchioli, R. (2009)
- The genomic basis of trophic strategy in marine bacteria.
- Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA 106: 15527–15533. (Cover story and Commentary: Church, M.J. The trophic tapestry of the sea. 15519-15520.)
- Williams, T., Ertan, H., Ting, L. &Cavicchioli, R. (2009)
- Carbon and nitrogen substrate utilization in the marine bacterium Sphingopyxis alaskensis strain RB2256.
- Intl Society of Microbial Ecology Journal 3: 1036-1052
- Giaquinto, L., Curmi, P.M.G., Siddiqui, K.S., Poljak, A., DeLong, E., DasSarma, S. and Cavicchioli, R. (2007)
- The structure and function of cold shock proteins in archaea.
- Journal of Bacteriology. 189: 5738-5748.
- Cavicchioli, R. (Ed). (2007)
- Archaea: Molecular and Cellular Biology.
- ASM Press, Washington, DC, USA. (23 chapters, 556 pages) ISBN: 978-1-55581-391-8.
- Thomas, T., Egan, S., Burg, D., Ng, C., Ting, L. and Cavicchioli, R (2007)
- Integration of genomic and proteomics into microbial ecology
- Marine Ecology Progress Series, 332:291-299
- Cavicchioli R, Demaere MZ, Thomas T (2007)
- Metagenomic studies reveal the critical and wide-ranging ecological importance of uncultivated archaea: the role of ammonia oxidizers.
- Bioessays. 29(1): 11-14
- Cavicchioli, R. (2007)
- Antarctic metagenomics.
- Microbiology Australia. 28: 98-103
- Mattalan-Surget, S., Joux, F., Lebaron, P. and Cavicchioli, R. (2007)
- Isolement et caractérisation de bactéries marines oligotrophes (Isolation and characterization of marine oligotrophic bacteria).
- Journal de la Société de Biologie (J Soc Biol). 201: 41-50
- Cavicchioli, R. (2006)
- Cold adapted Archaea.
- Nature Reviews Microbiology 4: 331-343.
- Siddiqui, K.S. and Cavicchioli, R. (2006)
- Cold adapted enzymes.
- Annual Review of Biochemistry 75: 403-433.
- Saunders, N. F. W., Ng, C., Raftery, M., Guilhaus, M., Goodchild, A. and Cavicchioli, R. (2006)
- Proteomic and computational analysis of secreted proteins with type I signal peptides from the Antarctic archaeon Methanococcoides burtonii .
- Journal of Proteome Research 5: 2457-2464.
- Giaquinto, L., Curmi, P.M.G., Siddiqui, K.S., Poljak, A., DeLong, E., DasSarma, S. and Cavicchioli, R. (2006)
- The structure and function of cold shock proteins in archaea.
- Journal of Bacteriology. 189: 5738-5748
- Siddiqui, K.S., Poljak, A., Guilhaus, M., Feller, G., D’Amico, S., Gerday, C. and Cavicchioli, R. (2005)
- The role of disulfide-bridges in the activity and stability of a cold-active a-amylase.
- Journal of Bacteriology 187: 6206–6212.
- Goodchild, A., Saunders, F.W., Ertan, H., Raftery, M., Guilhaus, M., Curmi, P.M.G. and Cavicchioli, R. (2004)
- A proteomic determination of cold adaptation in the Antarctic archaeon, Methanococcoides burtonii .
- Molecular Microbiology 53: 309-321.
- Goodchild, A., Raftery, M., Saunders, N.F.W., Guilhaus, M. and Cavicchioli, R. (2004)
- The biology of the cold-adapted archaeon, Methanococcoides burtonii determined by proteomics using liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry.
- Journal of Proteome Research 3: 1164-1176
- Saunders, N., Thomas, T., Curmi, P.M.G., Mattick, J.S., Kuczek, E., Slade, R., Davis, J., Franzmann, P.D., Boone, D., Rusterholtz, K., Feldman, R., Gates, C., Bench, S., Sowers, K., Kadner, K., Aerts, A., Dehal, P., Detter, C., Glavina, T., Lucas, S., Richardson, P., Larimer, F., Hauser, L., Land, M. and Cavicchioli, R. (2003)
- Mechanisms of thermal adaptation revealed from the genomes of the Antarctic Archaea, Methanogenium frigidum and Methanococcoides burtonii.
- Genome Research 13: 1580-1588