SKB lab - a place to discover ourselves

 

Lynette worked on the role of SR proteins in thermal response.

Nurul completed her Honours by screening more than 800 compounds for their ability to suppress the repeat expansion associated phenotype in plants.

Sailaja completed her MPhil and now working at another research lab exploiting genome engineering techniques. Her thesis is on

“Triplet repeats and phenotypic variations in Arabidopsis thaliana”

Lynette Fulton

Postdoc

Nurul Safwannah

Honours Student

Sailaja Vishwanathan

MPhil Student

Riffat Tahira visited SKB lab from Pakistan through a scholarship by the Higher Education Commission of Pakistan. Riffat returned to her work as a Scientific officer, back in Pakistan

Riffat Tahira

Visiting Scientist

Wangsheng completed his PhD with flying colours and is now doing a postdoc with Detlef Weigel at the Max-Planck Institute for Developmental Biology, Tuebingen. His thesis is on

“Genetic characterization of natural variation regulating thermal responses in plant development”

Wangsheng Zhu

PhD Student

Amanda Tabib

PhD Student

Amanda completed her honours at Mater Hospitals in Brisbane and joined the SKB Lab. Amanda worked on the environmental effects on triplet repeats and completed her PhD in 2015. Her thesis is on

“Translational genetics: from Arabidopsis to Friedreich’s ataxia”

Celine Tasset joined SKB lab in 2011 after completing her PhD from University of Toulouse in France. Celine is an expert in cooking too. The attraction to cooking was strong that she decided to pursue a career in cooking.

Eduardo Sanchez Bermejo

Postdoc

Eduardo comes to Australia from Spain after learning the intricacies of natural variation from Carlos Alonso Blanco. Eduardo finds natural variation in spoken english to be more challenging than the variation in phenotypes. Eduardo joined David Salt lab after leaving our group.

Hannes got attracted to the idea of beautiful beaches and science along the sidelines.. Hannes comes from Vienna after completing his Diploma thesis in Hawai and is interested in understanding temperature response in plants. He completed his PhD in 2016. His thesis is

“The molecular mechanisms underlying thermal responses of Arabidopsis thaliana”

Celine Tasset

Postdoc

Hannes Eimer

PhD Student

How can an Indian run a lab in Australia and does not host a cricketer in the lab? Vignesh fills that slot in the lab. In addition to playing cricket, Vignesh is interested in understanding the mechanisms through which the light perception is modulated in plants.

Vignesh Sundaramoorthi

Lab manager/Research assistant

Papers

  1. 1.Cao, MD., Tasker, E., Willadsen, K., Imelfort, M., Vishwanathan, S., Sureshkumar, S., Balasubramanian, S and Boden, M (2014) Inferring short tandem repeat variation from paired-end reads, Nucleic Acids Research, 42(3):e6. doi:10.1093/nar/gkt1313.

  2. 2.Tabib, A., Vishwanathan, S., Seleznev, A., McKeown, P., Downing, T., Dent, C., Sanchez-Bermejo, E., Colling, L., Spillane, C and Balasubramanian, S (2016) A polynucleotide repeat expansion causing temperature-sensitivity persists in wild Irish accessions of Arabidopsis thaliana. Frontiers in Plant Science, doi:10.3389/fpls.2016.01311

Papers

  1. 1.Raman, H., Raman, R., Coombes, N., Song, J., Pragnell, R., Bandaranayake, C., Tahira, R., Sundaramoorthi, V., Killian, A., Meng, J., Dennis, ES and Balasubramanian, S (2015) Genome-wide association analyses reveal complex genetic architecture underlying natural variation for flowering time in canola, Plant Cell and Environment, 1 Oct 15, doi:10.1111/pce.12644

Papers

  1. 1.Mendez-Vigo, B., Ausin, I., Zhu, W., Molla-Morales, A., Balasubramanian, S and Alonso-Blanco, C (2019) Genetic interactions and molecular evolution of the duplicated genes ICARUS 2 and ICARUS 1 help Arabidopsis plants adapt to different ambient temperatures, Plant Cell, 31(6):1222-1237

  2. 2.Zhu, W*., Ausin, I*., Seleznev, A., Mendez-Vigo, B., Pico, FX., Sureshkumar, S., Sundaramoorthi, V., Bulach, D., Powell, D., Seemann, T., Alonso-Blanco, C and Balasubramanian, S (2015) Natural variation identifies ICARUS1, a universal gene required for cell proliferation and growth at high temperatures in Arabidopsis thaliana. PLoS Genetics, 11(5):e1005085.

  3. 3.Sanchez-Bermejo, E*., Zhu, W*., Tasset, C., Eimer, H., Sureshkumar, S., Singh, R., Sundaramoorthi, V., Colling, L and Balasubramanian, S (2015) Genetic architecture of natural variation in thermal responses of Arabidopsis. Plant Physiology, 169:647-659.  (*shared first authors)

Papers

  1. 1.Tasset, C., Singh Yadav, A., Sureshkumar, S., Singh, R., van der Woude, L., Nekrasov, M., Tremethick, D., van Zanten, M and Balasubramanian, S (2018) POWERDRESS-mediated histone deacetylation is essential for thermomorphogenesis in Arabidopsis thaliana. PLoS Genetics, 14(3):e1007280.

  2. 2.Sureshkumar, S., Dent, C., Seleznev, A., Tasset, C and Balasubramanian, S (2016) Nonsense-mediated mRNA decay modulates FLM-dependent thermosensory flowering response in Arabidopsis. Nature Plants, 2(5):16055, doi: 10.1038/NPLANTS.2016.55

  3. 3.Sanchez-Bermejo, E*., Zhu, W*., Tasset, C., Eimer, H., Sureshkumar, S., Singh, R., Sundaramoorthi, V., Colling, L and Balasubramanian, S (2015) Genetic architecture of natural variation in thermal responses of Arabidopsis. Plant Physiology, 169:647-659.

Papers

  1. 1.Sanchez-Bermejo, E*., Zhu, W*., Tasset, C., Eimer, H., Sureshkumar, S., Singh, R., Sundaramoorthi, V., Colling, L and Balasubramanian, S (2015) Genetic architecture of natural variation in thermal responses of Arabidopsis. Plant Physiology, 169:647-659.

  2. 2.Sanchez-Bermejo, E and Balasubramanian, S (2015) Natural variation involving deletion alleles of FRIGIDA modulate temperature-sensitive flowering responses in Arabidopsis thaliana. Plant Cell and Environment, 39(6):1353-1365, doi: 10.1111/pce.12690.

  3. 3.Tabib, A., Vishwanathan, S., Seleznev, A., McKeown, P., Downing, T., Dent, C., Sanchez-Bermejo, E., Colling, L., Spillane, C and Balasubramanian, S (2016) A polynucleotide repeat expansion causing temperature-sensitivity persists in wild Irish accessions of Arabidopsis thaliana. Frontiers in Plant Science, 7:1311 doi:10.3389/fpls.2016.01311

Papers

  1. 1.Eimer, H*., Sureshkumar, S., Singh Yadav, A., Kraupner-Taylor, C., Bandaranayake, C., Seleznev, A., Thomason, T., Fletcher, SJ., Gordon, SF., Carroll, BJ and Balasubramanian, S (2018) RNA-dependent epigenetic silencing directs transcriptional downregulation caused by intronic repeat expansions. Cell, 174(5):1095-1105. doi:10.1016/j.cell.2018.06.044

  2. 2.Sanchez-Bermejo, E*., Zhu, W*., Tasset, C., Eimer, H., Sureshkumar, S., Singh, R., Sundaramoorthi, V., Colling, L and Balasubramanian, S (2015) Genetic architecture of natural variation in thermal responses of Arabidopsis. Plant Physiology, 169:647-659.

Papers

  1. 1.Sanchez-Bermejo, E*., Zhu, W*., Tasset, C., Eimer, H., Sureshkumar, S., Singh, R., Sundaramoorthi, V., Colling, L and Balasubramanian, S (2015) Genetic architecture of natural variation in thermal responses of Arabidopsis. Plant Physiology, 169:647-659.

  2. 2.Zhu, W*., Ausin, I*., Seleznev, A., Mendez-Vigo, B., Pico, FX., Sureshkumar, S., Sundaramoorthi, V., Bulach, D., Powell, D., Seemann, T., Alonso-Blanco, C and Balasubramanian, S (2015) Natural variation identifies ICARUS1, a universal gene required for cell proliferation and growth at high temperatures in Arabidopsis thaliana. PLoS Genetics, 11(5):e1005085.

  3. 3.Raman, H., Raman, R., Coombes, N., Song, J., Pragnell, R., Bandaranayake, C., Tahira, R., Sundaramoorthi, V., Killian, A., Meng, J., Dennis, ES and Balasubramanian, S (2015) Genome-wide association analyses reveal complex genetic architecture underlying natural variation for flowering time in canola, Plant Cell and Environment, 1 Oct 15, doi:10.1111/pce.12644

Former Honours Students

  1. 1.Calvin Kraupner Taylor - - 2016 - Honours student, currently pursuing PhD at the Biomedicine Discovery Institute in the Beilharz Group.






  2. 2.Tamblyn Thomason  - 2016 - Honours student, currently research assistant at Monash University






  3. 3.Craig Dent  - 2015 - Honours student, currently pursuing PhD in my group

  4. 4.Nurul Noor Azmi - 2012 - Honours student.

  5. 5.Aleksej Stevanovic - 2011 - Honours student, Completed PhD in the group of Dr. Karyn Johnson at The University of Queensland.

  6. 6.Hiroaki Sato  - 2011 - Honours student, Completed PhD currently pursuing Postdoc in the group of Dr. Katsuhiko Suzuki at Waseda University, Japan.

Former Masters/Diploma Students

  1. 1.Vignesh Sundaramoorthi  - 2011 - Masters by coursework, currently with the Eliminate Dengue program, Monash University.

  2. 2.Sanjeev Reddy Puligore - 2010- Masters by coursework.

  3. 3.Mondar Ahmad - 2009 - Graduate certificate in Molecular Biology.

  4. 4.David Richter  - 2008 - Masters by coursework.

Former undergraduate students

(summer/winter scholarships, student volunteers etc)

  1. 1.Kok Ping Loo - 2019 - Winter Scholarship,

  2. 2.Rajan Lakshman - 2019 - Winter Scholarship

  3. 3.Nayanatara Samarasekara - 2019 - Student volunteer,

  4. 4.Shikar Mishra - 2019 - Student volunteer,

  5. 5.Subasree Kumar - 2018- Student volunteer, GEN3990 student

  6. 6.Nikita Bungay - 2018 - Student volunteer

  7. 7.Frances Nival -  2017 - Student volunteer

  8. 8.Isabella Stuart - 2017 - Student volunteer

  9. 9.Ella Wilson-2017 - Winter Scholarship

  10. 10.Stephanie Francis Gordon- 2017 - Student Project (GEN3990) - currently pursuing Honours.

    Papers

    1. 1.Eimer, H*., Sureshkumar, S., Singh Yadav, A., Kraupner-Taylor, C., Bandaranayake, C., Seleznev, A., Thomason, T., Fletcher, SJ., Gordon, SF., Carroll, BJ and Balasubramanian, S (2018) RNA-dependent epigenetic silencing directs transcriptional downregulation caused by intronic repeat expansions. Cell, doi:10.1016/j.cell.2018.06.044


  11. 11.James Georges - 2016 - Student volunteer

  12. 12.Stephanie Blahut -2016- Student Project (GEN3990).

  13. 13.Jasmyn Voss - 2016 - Winter Scholarship

  14. 14.Zoe Macgill - 2016 - Winter Scholarship

  15. 15.Harshini Thiagarajah  - 2015 - Summer Scholarship

  16. 16.Carl Ji Hao Wang - 2015- Summer Scholarship

  17. 17.Angus Charles Burns - 2015 - Student Project (GEN3990).

  18. 18.Calvin Anthony Taylor Kraupner  - 2015- Winter Scholarship, currently pursuing Honours in my group.

  19. 19.Michelle Van  - 2015 - Winter Scholarship

  20. 20.Emiliana Weiss - 2015- Student Project (GEN3990), exchange student from Brazil.

  21. 21.Tom Fisher- 2014 - Summer Scholarship, Finished Honours in Bowman group in 2015.

  22. 22.Sandra Kusturica - 2014- Summer Scholarship

  23. 23.Luana Colling  - 2013 - Brazilian exchange student internship in the lab, Co-Papers
    1) Sanchez-Bermejo, E*., Zhu, W*., Tasset, C., Eimer, H., Sureshkumar, S., Singh, R., Sundaramoorthi, V., Colling, L and Balasubramanian, S (2015) Genetic architecture of natural variation in thermal responses of Arabidopsis. Plant Physiology, 169:647-659.
    2)     Tabib, A., Vishwanathan, S., Seleznev, A., McKeown, P., Downing, T., Dent, C., Sanchez-Bermejo, E., Colling, L., Spillane, C and Balasubramanian, S (2016) A polynucleotide repeat expansion causing temperature-sensitivity persists in wild Irish accessions of Arabidopsis thaliana. Frontiers in Plant Science, doi:10.3389/fpls.2016.01311

  24. 24.Kate Mosse - 2013- Summer Scholarship, currently pursuing Honours.

  25. 25.Yindi Sutton - 2013 - Summer Scholarship. 

  26. 26.Marina Youssef  - 2013- Winter Scholarship.

  27. 27.Vicky Wong- 2013 - Student Project (GEN3990)

  28. 28.Amber Rich - 2013- Student Project (GEN3990)

  29. 29.Fathima Nazha  - 2013 - Student Project (GEN3990) Pursuing studies to become a medical doctor.

  30. 30.Adele Barugahare - 2012- Student Trainee, Currently bioinformatician at Monash University

  31. 31.Edward Tasker - 2012- Summer Scholarship, GEN3990 Project,
    Papers
    1) Cao, MD., Tasker, E., Willadsen, K., Imelfort, M., Vishwanathan, S., Sureshkumar, S., Balasubramanian, S and Boden, M (2014) Inferring short tandem repeat variation from paired-end reads, Nucleic Acids Research, 42(3):e6. doi:10.1093/nar/gkt1313.

  32. 32.Nicolai McNee - 2012- Student Project (GEN3990)

  33. 33.Denise Ang  - 2010- Student Project - UQ

  34. 34.Yoshihito Minota - 2010- Student Project - UQ

  35. 35.Yun Kit Yeoh - 2010 - Student Project, Currently a postdoc at UQ.  

  36. 36.Chien Weai Ho  - 2009- Student Project- UQ

  37. 37.Aleksej Stevanovic- 2009 - Student Project- UQ, pursuing PhD at UQ.

  38. 38.Annika Nichols - 2009- Advanced studies student- UQ, pursuing PhD at IMP Vienna.

  39. 39.Andrea Schaul  - 2009 - Student Project- UQ.  Currently a research assistant.

  40. 40.Emmalenka Sadlecek - 2009- Student Trainee- UQ.

  41. 41.Elizabeth Worrall - 2009- Student Trainee- UQ, pursuing PhD at UQ. 

  42. 42.Merran Nielson - 2008- Summer Student - UQ.

  43. 43.Chin Lin Wong - 2008- Summer Student -  UQ- pursuing PhD at UQ.

  44. 44.Tony Bui  - 2008- Summer Student - UQ - pursuing PhD at UQ

  45. 45.Jin Hsien Choo - 2008- Summer Student -  UQ

  46. 46.Emma Mayers  - 2008- Advanced studies student - UQ - pursuing PhD at UQ

 

At SKB lab, you find your passion, discover yourself and find your skills not only in science but also in other aspects of life.

Papers

  1. 1.Tabib, A., Vishwanathan, S., Seleznev, A., McKeown, P., Downing, T., Dent, C., Sanchez-Bermejo, E., Colling, L., Spillane, C and Balasubramanian, S (2016) A polynucleotide repeat expansion causing temperature-sensitivity persists in wild Irish accessions of Arabidopsis thaliana. Frontiers in Plant Science, 7:1311. doi:10.3389/fpls.2016.01311

Rupali was instrumental in working out key aspects of CRY2 and POWERDRESS in thermal responses. She now contributes to efforts on eliminating dengue from the face of the earth!

Rupali Singh

Visitor/Research Assistant

Papers

  1. 1.Tasset, C., Singh Yadav, A., Sureshkumar, S., Singh, R., van der Woude, L., Nekrasov, M., Tremethick, D., van Zanten, M and Balasubramanian, S (2018) POWERDRESS-mediated histone deacetylation is essential for thermomorphogenesis in Arabidopsis thaliana. PLoS Genetics, 14(3):e1007280.

  2. 2.Sanchez-Bermejo, E*., Zhu, W*., Tasset, C., Eimer, H., Sureshkumar, S., Singh, R., Sundaramoorthi, V., Colling, L and Balasubramanian, S (2015) Genetic architecture of natural variation in thermal responses of Arabidopsis. Plant Physiology, 169:647-659.

Tamblyn completed her Honours working out fascinating aspects of tripet expansion associated phenotypes. Great contributor to SKB lab. She is currently figuring out whether flies are as good a model as Arabidopsis!

Tamblyn Thomason

Honours Student

Papers

  1. 1.Eimer, H*., Sureshkumar, S., Singh Yadav, A., Kraupner-Taylor, C., Bandaranayake, C., Seleznev, A., Thomason, T., Fletcher, SJ., Gordon, SF., Carroll, BJ and Balasubramanian, S (2018) RNA-dependent epigenetic silencing directs transcriptional downregulation caused by intronic repeat expansions. Cell, 174(5):1095-1105. doi:10.1016/j.cell.2018.06.044

Papers

  1. 1.Eimer, H*., Sureshkumar, S., Singh Yadav, A., Kraupner-Taylor, C., Bandaranayake, C., Seleznev, A., Thomason, T., Fletcher, SJ., Gordon, SF., Carroll, BJ and Balasubramanian, S (2018) RNA-dependent epigenetic silencing directs transcriptional downregulation caused by intronic repeat expansions. Cell, 174(5):1095-1105, doi:10.1016/j.cell.2018.06.044

Shilpi joined the lab in 2018. Shilpi worked for Department of Biotechnology, India before joining here and knows a thing or two about research funding too! She is currently a PhD student in the lab of John Bowman.

Shilpi Singh

PhD Student

Sridevi Sureshkumar

Postdoc

Sridevi completed her PhD from Detlef Weigel’s lab in Germany and is interested in understanding the role of alternative splicing and epigenetic silencing plants. After winning an ARC Future Fellowship, Sridevi now runs her own group - GATC (Genetics At The Core) Lab at Monash University.

Papers

  1. 1.Raman, H., Raman, R., Qiu, Y., Singh Yadav, A., Sureshkumar, S., Borg, L., Maheswaran R., Wheeler, D., Owen, O, Menz, I and Balasubramanian, S (2019) GWAS hints at pleiotropic roles for FLOWERNG LOCUS T in flowering time and yield-related traits in canola. BMC Genomics, 20(1):636.

  2. 2.Eimer, H*., Sureshkumar, S*., Singh Yadav, A., Kraupner-Taylor, C., Bandaranayake, C., Seleznev, A., Thomason, T., Fletcher, SJ., Gordon, SF., Carroll, BJ and Balasubramanian, S (2018) RNA-dependent epigenetic silencing directes transcriptional downregulation caused by intronic repeat expansions, Cell, 174(5):1095-1105. (*shared first author)

  3. 3.Tasset, C., Singh Yadav, A., Sureshkumar, S., Singh, R., van der Woude, L., Nekrasov, M., Tremethick, D., van Zanten, M and Balasubramanian, S (2018) POWERDRESS-mediated histone deacetylation is essential for thermomorphogenesis in Arabidopsis thaliana, PLoS Genetics, 14(3):e1007280.

  4. 4.Sureshkumar, S., Dent, C., Seleznev, A., Tasset, C and Balasubramanian, S (2016) Nonsense-mediated mRNA decay modulates FLM-dependent thermosensory flowering response in Arabidopsis, Nature Plants, 2(5):16055

  5. 5.Sanchez-Bermejo, E., Zhu, W., Tasset, C., Eimer, H., Sureshkumar, S., Singh, R., Sundaramoorthi, V., Colling, L and Balasubramanian, S (2015) Genetic architecture of natural variation in thermal responses of Arabidopsis. Plant Physiology, 169(1):647-659.

  6. 6.Zhu, W., Ausin, I., Seleznev, A., Mendez-Vigo, B., Pico, FC., Sureshkumar, S., Sundaramoorthi, V., Bulach, D., Powell, D., Seemann, T., Alonso-Blanco, C and Balasubramanian, S (2015) PLoS Genetics, 11(5):e1005085.

  7. 7.Cao, MD., Tasker, E., Willadsen, K., Imelfort, M., Vishwanathan, S., Sureshkumar, S and Balasubramanian, S (2014) Inferring short tandem repeat variation from paired-end short reads, Nucleic Acids Research, 42(3):e16.

Papers

  1. 1.Eimer, H*., Sureshkumar, S., Singh Yadav, A., Kraupner-Taylor, C., Bandaranayake, C., Seleznev, A., Thomason, T., Fletcher, SJ., Gordon, SF., Carroll, BJ and Balasubramanian, S (2018) RNA-dependent epigenetic silencing directs transcriptional downregulation caused by intronic repeat expansions. Cell, 174(5):1095-1105, doi:10.1016/j.cell.2018.06.044