Fellowship explores the secrets of glowworms

Emeritus Professor Rod Rickards

Rod Rickards, an Emeritus Professor and Visiting Fellow at the Australian National University, has been awarded a Visiting Fellowship in the Food Futures Flagship. He is working with Dr Stephen Trowell, Theme Leader of the Quality Biosensors group which is developing technologies to assist in winemaking and improve the global competitiveness of the Australian wine industry.

During the Fellowship Professor Rickards will be researching the processes of bioluminescence. Bioluminescence is the emission of light by a living organism and is one of the most beautiful and dramatic of natural phenomena. It occurs in different forms in many marine organisms, and in some terrestrial organisms the best known of which are fireflies and glowworms. Bioluminescence is the result of oxidation of a pigment called a luciferin (from the Latin, "light-bearing") by an enzyme luciferase. The biological process is remarkably efficient and finely tuned, operating under precise biochemical and physical controls that are not fully understood. The light emission has potential as a signalling system to convey machine-readable information out of a complex biological mixture, with applications in biosensor technology.

Professor Rickards is a graduate of the University of Sydney and served on the staff of the University of Manchester before returning to Australia in 1966 to be involved in the establishment of the Research School of Chemistry at the Australian National University. He brings to the Flagship substantial expertise in the chemistry of biologically active natural products, including their isolation, structure determination, biosynthesis and synthesis. Professor Rickards' chemical experience will also assist other aspects of the work of the Biosensor team.

His research group defined the structure of nystatin, the first of the complex polyene macrolide antibiotics to be discovered, which continues to have major application in the treatment of human fungal and yeast infections. Other contributions include the recognition of a new natural amino acid and its establishment as the key biogenetic precursor of several other groups of antibiotics, and a total synthesis of prostaglandins, important regulators of mammalian and human physiology.

Professor Rickards' collaboration with CSIRO Entomology began some fifteen years ago with work on the juvenile hormone of flies. Research with the Australian sheep blowfly defined the stereochemistry of the hormone, despite the fact that the sub-nanogram amounts of material available were quite invisible. More recently he assisted Dr Trowell's team in their successful isolation and characterisation of novel antibiotics in extracts of insects such as termites.

Flagship Visiting Fellowships enable Australian-based researchers to be seconded from their organisations to undertake agreed collaborative projects under the auspices of the National Research Flagships program. The program has been allocated $97 million over seven years under the Australian Government’s Backing Australia's Ability - Building Our Future Through Science and Innovation package.


 

The Food Futures Flagship is a CSIRO initiative and part of the National Research Flagships program that aims to deliver scientific solutions to advance Australia's most important national objectives. One of the largest scientific initiatives ever mounted in Australia, it aligns closely with the Federal Government's National Research Priorities. The initiative brings together our national research resources to deliver breakthroughs in fields ranging from healthcare to light metals and the environment.

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