People

Vicky McCarl

I completed my PhD (2007) at Monash University characterising nitrilases from Arabidopsis thaliana (also called thale cress). During my PhD I also worked at Protein Express where I helped formulate the strategy for high-throughput protein expression and purification. After my PhD, I was employed by Arbovax, a start-up biotechnology spin-off from North Carolina State University. Whilst there I was involved in engineering attenuated viruses as vaccine candidates for dengue fever.

In 2008, I joined the School of Molecular Bioscience at the University of Sydney to express soluble di-iron monoxygenases. These are key enzymes in the bacterial oxidation of hydrocarbons, and have applications in environmental and industrial biotechnology. I worked to express these proteins from Mycobacteria chubuense NBB4, in fast-growing, easy to manipulate recombinant expression systems.

I recently joined the School of Biological Sciences to study the phylogeography, colony structure, and caste-determination mechanisms of local pest termites. I plan to analyse their mitochondrial genes, microsatellites, and gene expression.

Publications

Katherine M. Smith, Kavita Nanda, Victoria McCarl, Carla J. Spears, Amanda Piper, Mariana Ribeiro, Michelle Quiles, Caitlin M. Briggs, Gwynneth S. Thomas, Malcolm E. Thomas, Dennis T. Brown, and Raquel Hernandez (2012) Testing of Novel Dengue Virus 2 Vaccines in African Green Monkeys: Safety, Immunogenicity, and Efficacy. Am. J. Trop. Med. Hyg, in press

Samantha Cheung S, Victoria McCarl, Andrew J Holmes, Nicholas V Coleman, Peter J Rutledge (2012) Substrate range and enantioselectivity of epoxidation reactions mediated by the ethene-oxidising Mycobacterium strain NBB4. Appl Microbiol Biotechnol, in press

Coleman NV, Le NB, Ly MA, Ogawa HE, McCarl V, Wilson NL, & Holmes AJ (2012) Hydrocarbon monooxygenase in Mycobacterium: recombinant expression of a member of the ammonia monooxygenase superfamily. The ISME Journal 6, 171–182

Myers GSA, Parker D, Al-Hasani K, Kennan RM, Seemann T, Ren Q, Badger JH, Selengut JD, DeBoy RT, Tettelin H, Boyce JD, McCarl VP, Han X, Nelson WC, Madupu R, Mohamoud Y, Holley T, Fedorova N, Khouri H, Bottomley SP, Whittington RJ, Adler B, Songer JG, Rood JI, & Paulsen IT (2007) The diminutive yet versatile genome of the animal pathogen, Dichelobacter nodosus. Nature Biotechnology 25, 569-75.

Al-Hasani K, Boyce J, McCarl V, Bottomley S, Wilkie I, & Adler B (2007) Identification of novel immunogens in Pasteurella multocida. Microbial Cell Factories, 6: e3.

Duggan PJ, Humphrey DG, & McCarl V (2004). Lipase-catalysed 1,6-acylation of D-mannitol Australian Journal of Chemistry 57, 741–745.

McCarl V (2004) The production of designer enzymes. Australian Journal of Chemistry, 57: 2770-2771.

Bhaskar VK, Duggan PJ, Humphrey DG, Krippner GY, McCarl V, & Offermann DA (2001) Phenylboronic acid as a labile protective agent: the selective derivatisation of 1,2,3-triols Journal of the Chemical Society, Perkin Transactions, 1: 1098–1102.