Dr Aaron Phillips
Research Officer
School of Agriculture, Food and Wine
Faculty of Sciences, Engineering and Technology
My research interests are rooted in understanding the physiological and molecular mechanisms of plant stress tolerance, with a particular passion for unusual or understudied species. I am keenly interested in emerging crop species such as hemp and agave and have significant experience working with Australian native crop relatives. My proficiency in bioinformatics and strong data analysis skills complement my physiological expertise.
I am an Early Career Researcher currently working as a Research Officer under Professor Rachel Burton within the School of Agriculture, Food, and Wine at Waite Campus. My research interests are rooted in understanding the physiological and molecular mechanisms of plant stress tolerance, with a particular passion for unusual or understudied species. I am keenly interested in emerging crop species such as hemp and agave and have significant experience working with Australian native crop relatives. My proficiency in bioinformatics and strong data analysis skills complement my physiological expertise.
My doctoral research, conducted under the guidance of Prof. Rachel Burton, Prof. Brian Atwell, and Dr. Nathan Watson-Haigh, focused on using modern phenomic and genomic tools to explore the abiotic stress tolerances of Oryza australiensis, an extremophile wild rice native to the northern savannahs of Australia. I examined the responses to combined heat stress and CO2 fertilization, and the individual and combined effects of drought and low soil nitrogen. Notably, I used ONT sequencing to assemble the world's first nuclear genome assembly for O. australiensis and developed a tool for the assembly of chloroplast genomes from long-read data.
My academic journey has also included a Master of Research in Plant Science from Macquarie University. Under the supervision of Professor Brian Atwell and Associate Professor Rachael Gallagher, I characterized the physiological and molecular responses to heat stress in commercial and wild species of cotton and tobacco, as well as in eight populations of kangaroo grass. This work is ongoing and is expanding to compare and contrast genus- and species-specific expression patterns of genes/proteins involved in tolerance to extreme heat.
I am currently involved in a project with Associate Professor Beth Loveys that focusses on grapevine hydraulics during stem heating events. By measuring physiological responses to stem heating, we hope to develop a model for water movement in grapevine tissues to better understand how bush fires impact vineyard performance on a fundamental level.
I have garnered significant industry experience. As a Research Officer at the University of Adelaide, I am currently involved in an industry-linked role with Vircura, focused on the establishment of germination, tissue culture, and glasshouse management for diverse Agave species. This project aims to induce phenotypic variation in cloned explants and is working towards reliable transformation systems for Agave. In doing so, we hope to get a South Australian Agave industry off the ground, with the ultimate goal of contributing to the Australian Government's aim to transition to Sustainable Aviation Fuel.
Further industry experience has come from a collaboration with South Australian lighting company VAILO. This Postdoctoral research focused on the cultivation of hemp. We utilized bespoke lighting to perform comprehensive physiological investigations in cannabis light responses, with the aim of enhancing cannabinoid content in female flowers. This project also had a minor Agave component, in which I identified optimal light spectra for the indoor growth of clones derived from tissue culture, informing industry practices.
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Appointments
Date Position Institution name 2023 - 2024 Research Officer University of Adelaide 2022 - 2023 Postdoctoral Research Fellow University of Adelaide 2018 - 2019 Research Assistant Macquarie University 2015 - 2015 Research Assistant Macquarie University -
Education
Date Institution name Country Title 2019 - 2023 University of Adelaide Australia PhD 2017 - 2017 Macquarie University Australia Master of Research 2016 - 2016 Macquarie University Australia Bachelor of Philosophy 2011 - 2014 Macquarie University Australia Bachelor of Advanced Science (Biology)
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Journals
Year Citation 2024 Ikeda, N., Shepherd, E., Makrides, M., McPhee, A. J., Gibson, R. A., & Gould, J. F. (2024). The effects of parenteral fish oil on neurodevelopment in preterm infants: A narrative review. Prostaglandins, Leukotrienes and Essential Fatty Acids, 201, 102620-1-102620-7.
Scopus1 Europe PMC12024 Dubey, G., Phillips, A. L., & Atwell, B. J. (2024). Physiological and structural traits contribute to thermotolerance in wild Australian cotton species.. Annals of botany., mcae098.
2024 Bianco-Miotto, T., Phillips, A. L., Heinze, D. R., Pennell, C. E., Maganga, R. K., Beilin, L. J., . . . Grieger, J. A. (2024). Adverse pregnancy outcomes are associated with shorter telomere length in the 17-year-old child. Journal of Developmental Origins of Health and Disease, 15, 8 pages.
2024 Doan, T. N. A., Cowley, J. M., Phillips, A. L., Briffa, J. F., Leemaqz, S. Y., Burton, R. A., . . . Bianco-Miotto, T. (2024). Imprinted gene alterations in the kidneys of growth restricted offspring may be mediated by a long non-coding RNA. Epigenetics, 19(1), 2294516-1-2294516-12.
2024 Phillips, A. L., Ferguson, S., Burton, R. A., & Watson-Haigh, N. S. (2024). CLAW: An automated Snakemake workflow for the assembly of chloroplast genomes from long-read data.. PLoS computational biology, 20(2), e1011870.
2023 Cowley, J. M., Phillips, A. L., Khor, S. F., Neumann, T., Lim, W. L., & Burton, R. A. (2023). Carbohydrates in Kangaroo grass (Themeda triandra Forssk.) grain and perspectives on its food potential. Journal of Cereal Science, 111, 103670-1-103670-5.
Scopus22022 Li, H., He, D., Zhu, X., & Chan, S. (2022). P1OVD: Patch-Based 1-Day Out-of-Bounds Vulnerabilities Detection Tool for Downstream Binaries. Electronics (Switzerland), 11(2), 260.
2022 Phillips, A. L., Scafaro, A. P., & Atwell, B. J. (2022). Photosynthetic traits of Australian wild rice (Oryza australiensis) confer tolerance to extreme daytime temperatures. Plant Molecular Biology, 110(4-5), 347-363.
Scopus6 WoS3 Europe PMC32022 Phillips, A. L., Ferguson, S., Watson-Haigh, N. S., Jones, A. W., Borevitz, J. O., Burton, R. A., & Atwell, B. J. (2022). The first long-read nuclear genome assembly of Oryza australiensis, a wild rice from northern Australia. Scientific Reports, 12(1), 10823-1-10823-15.
Scopus3 Europe PMC22021 Grewal, K., MacIntyre, D. A., & Bennett, P. R. (2021). The reproductive tract microbiota in pregnancy. Bioscience Reports, 41(9), 19 pages.
Scopus14 Europe PMC72020 Doan, T. N. A., Briffa, J. F., Phillips, A. L., Leemaqz, S. Y., Burton, R. A., Romano, T., . . . Bianco-Miotto, T. (2020). Epigenetic mechanisms involved in intrauterine growth restriction and aberrant kidney development and function. Journal of Developmental Origins of Health and Disease, 12(6), 952-962.
Scopus13 WoS6 Europe PMC62015 Cooke, J., Lanfear, R., Downing, A., Gillings, M. R., Poore, A. G. B., Goodwin, I. D., . . . Bulbert, M. W. (2015). The unusual occurrence of green algal balls of Chaetomorpha linum on a beach in Sydney, Australia. Botanica Marina, 58(5), 401-407.
Scopus7 WoS42013 Bejot, R., Goggi, J., Moonshi, S. S., & Robins, E. G. (2013). A practical synthesis of [<sup>18</sup>F]FtRGD: An angiogenesis biomarker for PET. Journal of Labelled Compounds and Radiopharmaceuticals, 56(2), 42-49.
Scopus11 Europe PMC72010 Pisaneschi, F., Nguyen, Q. D., Shamsaei, E., Glaser, M., Robins, E., Kaliszczak, M., . . . Aboagye, E. O. (2010). Development of a new epidermal growth factor receptor positron emission tomography imaging agent based on the 3-cyanoquinoline core: Synthesis and biological evaluation. Bioorganic and Medicinal Chemistry, 18(18), 6634-6645.
Scopus51 Europe PMC23 -
Conference Papers
Year Citation 2024 Meraj, S. T., Yu, S. S., Hasan, K., Trinh, H., & Shi, P. (2024). An Advanced Frequency Adaptive PLL for Grid Connected Inverters Under Abnormal Grid Conditions. In 2023 IEEE International Conference on Energy Technologies for Future Grids, ETFG 2023 (pp. 1-6). Online: IEEE.
DOI2024 Strkalj, L., Cowley, J. M., Yakubov, G. E., & Burton, R. A. (2024). Dietary fibre from seeds of Australia native Plantago species as modulators of quality and glycaemic response in starch gels. In Proceedings of the Nutrition Society Vol. 83 (pp. E161-1). Massey University, Albany, Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland: Cambridge University Press.
DOI2021 Xia, X., Ye, Z., & Sun, S. (2021). A Feature Selection Method Based on Hybrid Natural Inspired Algorithms. In PROCEEDINGS OF THE 11TH IEEE INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON INTELLIGENT DATA ACQUISITION AND ADVANCED COMPUTING SYSTEMS: TECHNOLOGY AND APPLICATIONS (IDAACS'2021), VOL 2 (pp. 621-625). ELECTR NETWORK: IEEE.
DOI2015 Cook, J., MacIntyre, D., Samara, E., Kim, S. H., Singh, N., Johnson, M., . . . Terzidou, V. (2015). Oxytocin modulates a unique set of human myometrial microRNAs. In BJOG-AN INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF OBSTETRICS AND GYNAECOLOGY Vol. 122 (pp. E8). WILEY-BLACKWELL.
FJ Sandoz Scholarship (2019-2023), University of Adelaide. $6,000 per annum.
Australian Plant Phenomics Facility Postgraduate Internship (2020). Valued at $10,000.
Deputy Vice Chancellor of Research Internal Grant (2019), Macquarie University. $25,000.
Val Williams Scholarship in Botany (2017), Australian Plants Society. $2,500.
Joyce Vickery Fund Award (2017), Linnean Society. $2,500.
Professional and Community Engagement Program International Travel Grant (2014), Macquarie University. $2,000.
I have demonstrated practical classes and marked for a range of undergraduate units at Macquarie University, including first-, second-, and third-year lab skill, evolution, and plant biology units. During undergraduate, I was a Peer-Assisted Learning leader, in which I taught organic chemistry to fellow undergraduate students. I have demonstrated and marked for several courses at the University of Adelaide including Foundations in Plant Science, and Agricultural Biochemistry.
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