Adjunct Professor
Bharat Patel
Faculty of Science,
School of Biology & Environmental Science
Biography
Professor Bharat Patel holds an Adjunct position with QUT since January 2017. Professor Patel completed his PhD on “New Zealand Extreme Thermophiles” which was funded by the New Zealand Development Corporation through Thermophile Research Unit (TRU), Department of Biological Sciences, Waikato University, Hamilton, New Zealand in 1985. During his PhD he was also appointed as a teaching assistant for undergraduate laboratories and a part-time lecturer as well as a Research Assistant to run a 650-liter small-scale fermentation facility for the production of thermostable enzyme. Following his PhD, he was appointed by Waikato University on a New Zealand Energy Research Development Corporation (NZERDC) funded Research Fellowship to investigate ethanol production from treated wood by thermophilic anaerobic bacteria. In 1987, he was appointed to a tenured Scientist position at Ruakura Agricultural Research Station, Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries (MAF) where he established a laboratory for monoclonal antibodies and cell cultures. In 1988, he took up a position as a lecturer in the Faculty of Science and Technology at Griffith University and was promoted to Senior Lecturer (1995), Associate Professor (1998) and Professor (2006). During this period at Griffith University, he was also appointed a visiting Professor at the IRD, Univesite de Marseille, France and Dept of Civil Engineering, National University of Singapore and held an honorary position with the University of New England, Australia.Personal details
Positions
- Adjunct Professor
Faculty of Science,
School of Biology & Environmental Science
Keywords
Ecology and taxonomy of microbes from extreme habitats of Australia, Extremozymes - over-expressions, cryrstalography and bioinformatics & synthetic gene technology, Industrial scale applications of extremozymes, Genomes / metagenomes of extremeophiles from the Australian Great Artesian Basin and coal seam gas
Research field
Other Biological Sciences
Field of Research code, Australian and New Zealand Standard Research Classification (ANZSRC), 2008
Experience
Private collection of Extreme environment microbes from Australian habitats (The Australian Extremophile Bank, TAEB): US, Japan and EEC commissioned reports had identified the lack of physiological diverse cultures ("extremophiles") from extreme environments as a major bottleneck and hindrance in industrial biotechnology. This lack stems from the culturing difficulties of extremophiles. I have been leading cutting edge research in the area of microbial diversity of extremophiles and their potential applications in industry. My laboratory has developed novel microbiology, molecular biology, microbial physiology, and bioinformatics techniques and approaches for the isolation of a wide variety of useful extremophiles from the Australian environments such as the Great Artesain Basin, a unique, hot, deep subsurface and chemically heterogenous ecosystem, as a resource for potential industrial applications. This microbial collection of extremophiles, the Australian Extremophile Bank (TAEB) is an extremely valuable asset for extremozymes. Extremozymes from The Australian Extremophile Bank (TAEB):A number of companies have accessed the TAEB collection for extremozymes. Examples of such companies include Proteus Ltd, France which has partial access to this private collection for commercialisation of certain enzymes. Astra-Zenica-GU has screened a part of the collection for important biomolecules. Specific enzymes have also been screened from this collection for a contract by ABEnzymes, Germany. A project was funded by the Sugar Research & Development Corporation to screen the collectuion for thermostable dextranases suited to the sugar industry process. A search for thermostable enzymes useful for molecular biology was funded by a collaborative ARC grant with Progen Industries and La Trobe University. Additionally, industrial food enzymes e.g xylanases and lactases isolated from some strains have interested commercial users of enzymes in Australia and overseas. Pipeline biocorrosion:Biocorrosion is a major problem in industries which uses metal pipes extensively (e.g. oil industry, water industry). Economic losses due to corrosion run into the tens of millions of dollars and we hve been investigating the role of microbes in the corrosion of oil pipes (in conjunction with Oil Company of Australia, ORSTOM, Elf Aquitane) and bore pipes (Queensland Water Resources). An understanding of the biological process will lead to developments of methods for the control of corrosion causing microbial populations. Industry, ARC and Water Resources Commission of Queensland have supported this area of research with cash and in-kind grants. New molecular techniques for pathogen identification: New rapid and relatively inexpensive methods for identifying pathogenic microbes without the need to culture have also ben developed with industry partners. Methods have been developed to identify pathogenic Leptospira, Listeria monocytogenes, Campylobacteriaand Arcobacter. The methods were developed in collaboration with Queensland Health Scientific Health Services (QHSS) and WHO/FAO leptospirosis reference laboratories with funding from ARC and QHSS. One the method that was developed has been validated for routine use in the WHO/FAO leptospirosis reference laboratories. A major future goal is to use data generated form Next Generation Sequencing (NGS) to develop robust molecular techniques for the diagnostic industries.
Publications
- Abady, N., Guglielmino, C., Graham, R., Adelskov, J., Smith, H., Patel, B. & Jennison, A. (2017). Genetic characterization of a Neisseria meningitidis cluster in Queensland, Australia. Canadian Journal of Microbiology, 63(7), 644–647. https://eprints.qut.edu.au/108768
- Adelskov, J. & Patel, B. (2016). A molecular phylogenetic framework for Bacillus subtilis using genome sequences and its application to Bacillus subtilis subspecies stecoris strain D7XPN1, an isolate from a commercial food-waste degrading bioreactor. 3 Biotech, 6, 1–16. https://eprints.qut.edu.au/108364
- Geiger, B., Gandini, R., Patel, B., Kittl, R., Haltrich, D., Nguyen, T., Divne, C., Tan, T. & Hassan, N. (2016). Engineering a thermostable Halothermothrix orenii Beta-glucosidase for improved galacto-oligosaccharide synthesis. Applied Microbiology and Biotechnology, 100(8), 3533–3543. https://eprints.qut.edu.au/108363
- Lajhar, S., Jennison, A., Patel, B. & Duffy, L. (2015). Comparison of epidemiologically linked Campylobacter jejuni isolated from human and poultry sources. Epidemiology and Infection, 143(16), 3498–3509. https://eprints.qut.edu.au/108366
- Ogg, C., Spanevello, M. & Patel, B. (2013). Exploring the ecology of thermophiles from Australia's Great Artesian Basin during the genomic era. In T. Littlechild, J. Kawarabayasi & T. Satyanarayana (Eds.), Thermophilic microbes in environmental and industrial biotechnology: Biotechnology of thermophiles (Second edition) (pp. 61–97). Springer. https://eprints.qut.edu.au/108374
- Chua, T., Seetharaman, J., Kasprzak, J., Ng, C., Patel, B., Love, C., Bujnicki, J. & Sivaraman, J. (2010). Crystal structure of a fructokinase homolog from Halothermothrix orenii. Journal of Structural Biology, 171(3), 397–401. https://eprints.qut.edu.au/108386
- Zhang, L., Sriprakash, K., McMillan, D., Gowardman, J., Patel, B. & Rickard, C. (2010). Microbiological pattern of arterial catheters in the intensive care unit. BMC Microbiology, 10, 1–9. https://eprints.qut.edu.au/108380
- Ogg, C. & Patel, B. (2009). Caloramator australicus sp. nov., a thermophilic, anaerobic bacterium from the Great Artesian Basin of Australia. International Journal of Systematic and Evolutionary Microbiology, 59(1), 95–101. https://eprints.qut.edu.au/108389
- Desai, C., Jain, K., Patel, B. & Madamwar, D. (2009). Efficacy of bacterial consortium-AIE2 for contemporaneous Cr(VI) and azo dye bioremediation in batch and continuous bioreactor systems, monitoring steady-state bacterial dynamics using qPCR assays. Biodegradation, 20(6), 813–826. https://eprints.qut.edu.au/108396
- Pope, P. & Patel, B. (2008). Metagenomic analysis of a freshwater toxic cyanobacteria bloom. FEMS Microbiology Ecology, 64(1), 9–27. https://eprints.qut.edu.au/108399
QUT ePrints
For more publications by Bharat, explore their research in QUT ePrints (our digital repository).