Rick Cavicchioli: Team Leader

r.cavicchioli@unsw.edu.au
Rick has the fun of seeing the team of Extremophiles produce great work. Whether it be meta/genomics and meta/proteomics of Antarctic archaea, microbial adaptation of marine oligotrophs, discovering new bioactives or hand waving about extra-terrestrial life, it is all good fun and productive science.

Sohail Siddiqui: Senior Research Fellow

Sohail graduated his PhD from London University, before becoming Senior Scientific Officer at the National Institute for Biotechnology and Genetic Engineering, Faisalabad, Pakistan.Sohail heads the commercial research that utilises novel methods for improving the thermal properties of enzymes that are important in industrial, agricultural and medical applications.

Matt De Maere: Research Fellow

Formerly a programmer for Nucleics, a background in biophysics, and driving a Lotus (on a postdoc salary?!) the question has to be asked, what is it the Matt can't do?!Taking over from Neil Saunders, Matt's research focuses on everything bioinformatics, playing a key role in our environmental genomics program.

Michelle Allen: Research Fellow

Michelle earned her PhD with Brett Neilan at UNSW studying wierd microbes that colonize stromatolites, including haloarchaea! Michelle is applying her broad knowledge of molecular environmental microbiology to the analysis of microbial genomes, in particular functional annotation of Methanococcoides burtonii.

Tim Williams: Research Fellow

After a long postdoctoral stint in the USA at several institutions, Tim has returned to UNSW where he did his PhD. The group is benefiting in many ways from his broad experience iwith interesting microbes (e.g. magnetotactic bacteria). Tim's project involves proteomic studies on Methanococcoides burtonii.

Oliver Pilak: Research Fellow

Oliver completed his PhD with Rolf Thauer at the Max Planck Institute for Terrestrial Microbiology involving the structural analysis of iron-sulphur cluster-free hydrogenases from methanogens. Oliver's research involves studies on chaperonins from Methanococcoides burtonii.

Kevin Chong: PhD student

Kevin hails from the National University of Singapore where he received his BSc Hons in 2006. Having previously probed molecular aspects of Alzheimer's Disease, Kevin is breaking new ground through studies of nucleic acid binding proteins in Methanococcoides burtonii.

Lily Ting: PhD student

Lily was awarded the BABS Honours Year Scholarship in 2004, and an Australian Postgraduate Award for her  current PhD studies. Lily is forging the proteome front with her studies on Sphingopyxis alaskensis.

Dom Burg: PhD student

Dom graduated his Honours year from UTS (2004) being awarded prizes from the Dean's List for Academic Excellence, and the Australian Institute of Medical Scientists' Bruce Munro Prize which is annually awarded to the best student from the Biomedical Science and Medical Science Honours degrees. Dom is forging the proteome front with his studies on Methanococcoides burtonii.

Sabine-Astrid Matallana Surget: cotutelle PhD student

Sabine is enrolled in a joint PhD with UNSW and Laboratoire d'Océanologie Biologique de Banyuls at the Université Paris VI. Under cotutelage with Fabien Joux and Philippe Lebaron, Sabine will conduct her research in France and Australia. Her project involves physiological stress responses and proteomics with Sphingopyxis alaskensis and is presently here with us in Sydney.

Davide De Francisci: PhD student

The italian connection is strengthened with Davide who also graduated from University of Naples Federico II, Italy, being awarded the Universities' highest honours. Davide was recently (2005) awarded an extremely competitive UNSW International Postgraduate Scholarship for his PhD studies. Davide is probing a range of molecular mechanisms of adaptation in Methanococcoides burtonii, primarily using targeted protein and global proteomic methods.

Charmaine Ng: PhD student

'Maine graduated her 2005 mid-year Honours program with flying colours. In the course of her studies she broke important new ground with the proteomics of Methanococcoides burtonii. While the pull of chilli-crab back in Singapore was alluring, being awarded a UNSW International Postgraduate Scholarship for her PhD studies, has brought her back. Maine is studying metaproteomics linked to metagenomic data of Antarctic lakes.

Martin Ostrowski: PhD student

Martin performed ground breaking work on the growth rate control of the physiology of Sphingopyxis alaskensis, including a good swag of proteomics. Martin's passions include a particular French babe, wine making and discovering new ways of extending his PhD candidature! Hang on, breaking news, Martin is just about to graduate!

Hwee Hoon Chew: Honours student

Originally from Malaysia, Hwee is enrolled in her Honours project for a UNSW Biotechnology degree. Her project involves genome functional annotation of Methanococcoides burtonii. Hwee's efforts are making important in roads into completing the annotation and analysis of the M. burtonii genome sequence.

Cat Lay Hoon Seah : Undergraduate project

After her Diploma in Biotechnology from Nanyang University in Singapore, Cat was awarded a Golden Jubilee Scholarship for her studies in the Advanced Science Program at UNSW. Studying proteomics as part of the Sphingopyxis alaskensis team for her undergraduate project is helping her consider research choices for her Honours year program.