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Professor Rod Devenish
Deputy Director, and Convenor Steering Committee, Monash Graduate Research School
Autophagy
All eukaryotic cells degrade (or turnover) parts of their internal structure including organelles such as mitochondria by a process called autophagy ("self eating") that occurs in a specialized compartment of cells - the vacuole (in yeast) or the lysosome (in mammals). In yeast, autophagy is mainly involved in cellular homeostasis (removal of damaged organelles) and adaptation to starvation, but in multicellular organisms (mammals) it is also involved in a variety of other processes such as programmed cell death and development of different tissue-specific functions. Alterations in the levels of autophagy are linked to a growing number of pathological conditions including neurodegenerative diseases such Parkinson’s, myopathies such as cardiomyopathic Danon’s disease, and some forms of cancer.
Project Areas
Autophagy and organelle turnover in cells, focusing on mitochondria.
How autophagy can be avoided or subverted in bacterial infection of mammalian cells.
Autophagy in human embryonic stem cells.
Fluorescent proteins and chromoproteins having useful biotechnological properties (in collaboration with Dr Mark Prescott)
Fluorescent proteins (FPs) and chromoproteins (CPs), found in coral and other marine organisms, exhibit a broad range of spectral properties. Collectively these proteins represent an important biotechnological resource and have become widely utilised as imaging tools in molecular cell biology. FP technology allows a vast range of different events inside the living cell to be visualised in a way that cannot be achieved with any other currently available technologies.
Project Areas
The structure and formation of CPs and FPs.
Engineering CPs and FPs for imaging and novel biotechnology applications.
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