Dr Nan Hao
Lecturer
School of Biological Sciences
Faculty of Sciences, Engineering and Technology
Eligible to supervise Masters and PhD - email supervisor to discuss availability.
I am a Synthetic Biology Future Science Fellow based in the Department of Molecular and Biomedical Science, School of Biological Sciences. My research interests lie in the broad fields of Synthetic Biology, with a focus on combining biochemical studies with mathematical modeling to better understand the "design" features of the genome.
- My Research
- Career
- Publications
- Grants and Funding
- Teaching
- Supervision
- Professional Activities
- Contact
My research aims to advance fundamental knowledge and addresses widespread but poorly understood processes in gene transcription such as transcriptional interference, transcriptional roadblocking, feedback control and DNA looping, all of which are likely to be highly significant for the regulation of gene expression.
Additionally, I have a strong interest in bacteriophages, and the utilization of phage components for synthetic biology applications and therapeutics. I run a phage discovery program that focuses on identifying and characterizing novel phages from environmental samples as an alternative strategy to treat antibiotic-resistant bacteria.
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Appointments
Date Position Institution name 2024 - ongoing Lecturer University of Adelaide 2017 - 2024 Synthetic Biology Future Science Fellow (Level B) University of Adelaide and CSIRO joint appointment 2017 - 2017 ARC DECRA Fellow (Level B) University of Adelaide, Adelaide 2015 - 2016 ARC DECRA Fellow (Level A) University of Adelaide, Adelaide 2012 - 2014 Postdoc Research Fellow (Level A) University of Adelaide, Adelaide 2007 - 2008 Research Assistant University of Adelaide, Adelaide 2006 - 2007 Research Assistant University of Adelaide, Adelaide -
Awards and Achievements
Date Type Title Institution Name Country Amount 2021 Award ECR Presentation Award ASBMB Adelaide Protein Group (APG) Australia A$1000 2019 Award ECR poster award Synthetic Biology Australasia (SBA) Australia A$200 2019 Award YSP travel fellowship, 27th FAOBMB & 44th MSBMB Conference Federation of Asian and Oceanian Biochemist & Molecular Biologist Malaysia A$3000 2017 Research Award Executive Dean's Order of Merit, Daniel Walker Medal for Early Career Research Excellence The University of Adelaide Australia - 2017 Achievement Finalist for ECR presentation ASBMB Adelaide Protein Group (APG) Australia - 2017 Invitation Invited Seminar Presentation Epigenetics Consortium of South Australia and Adelaide RNA Special Interest Group Seminar Australia - 2017 Invitation Invited Pitch US Department of Defence Representative Australia - 2016 Award Best presentation/poster in the ECR category OCE Cutting Edge Conference in Synthetic Biology Australia A$ 200 2015 Invitation Invited Speaker School of Biological Sciences Inaugural Research Day - - 2015 Fellowship ASBMB travel fellowship ASBMB Australia A$ 3000 2012 Award Poster Award ASBMB ComBio conference Australia A$ 200 2012 Research Award Postgraduate Academic Achievement Award The University of Adelaide Australia A$ 500 2012 Award Writing up Award The University of Adelaide Australia A$ 3000 2011 Award Chinese government award for outstanding self-financed students abroad China Scholarship Council China US$ 6000 2011 Award Poster prize ASBMB Adelaide Protein Group Australia A$ 200 2010 Achievement Finalist ASBMB Adelaide Protein Group Student Event Australia - 2008 Scholarship Adelaide Graduate Fee Scholarship - PhD scholarship The University of Adelaide - - 2007 Award The Brian & Heather Forster Prize in Biochemistry - Top Honours The University of Adelaide Australia - 2005 Scholarship Summer Vacation Scholarship The University of Adelaide Australia - -
Language Competencies
Language Competency Chinese (Mandarin) Can read, write, speak, understand spoken and peer review English Can read, write, speak, understand spoken and peer review -
Education
Date Institution name Country Title 2008 - 2012 The University of Adelaide Australia PhD in Biochemistry 2007 - 2007 The University of Adelaide Australia B. Sc. (Honours, First class) 2004 - 2006 The University of Adelaide Australia B. Sc. (Biomedical Science) -
Research Interests
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Journals
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Conference Items
Year Citation 2023 Hao, N. (2023). Re-imagining Phage Biology: A Synthetic Biology Perspective. Poster session presented at the meeting of ENT Mini Symposium. Adelaide. 2022 Hao, N. (2022). Synthetic Biology Tools for Repeated Genome Integration in E. coli. Poster session presented at the meeting of ASBMB ComBio 2022. Melbourne. 2021 Hao, N. (2021). The pIT5 Plasmid Series, an Improved Toolkit for Repeated Genome Integration in E. coli. Poster session presented at the meeting of ASBMB Adelaide Protein Group (APG) Awards Fest. Adelaide. 2019 Hao, N. (2019). Expanding the Synthetic Biology Toolbox. Poster session presented at the meeting of School of Biological Sciences Research Day. Adelaide. 2019 Hao, N., Shearwin, K. E., & Dodd, I. B. (2019). Programmable DNA looping using engineered bivalent dCas9 complexes. Poster session presented at the meeting of Abstracts of the 27th FAOBMB & 44th MSBMB Conference. Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia: Malaysian Society for Biochemistry & Molecular Biology (MSBMB). 2019 Hao, N. (2019). Positive and Negative Control of Enhancer-Promoter Interactions by Other DNA Loops Generates Specificity and Tunability. Poster session presented at the meeting of Synthetic Biology Australasia conference 2019. Brisbane. 2017 Hao, N., Shearwin, K., & Dodd, I. (2017). Understanding and Manipulating Chromosomal-Scale DNA Looping in Escherichia coli. Poster session presented at the meeting of 2017 Synthetic Biology: Engineering, Evolution & Design (SEED) : Proceedings. Vancouver, Canada. 2017 Hao, N. (2017). Programmable DNA looping using engineered bivalent dCas9 complexes. Poster session presented at the meeting of ASBMB ComBio conference. Adelaide. 2017 Hao, N. (2017). Programmable DNA looping using engineered bivalent dCas9 complexes. Poster session presented at the meeting of Synthetic Biology Australasia Conference. Sydney. 2017 Hao, N., Priest, D., Dodd, I., & Shearwin, K. (2017). Programmable DNA looping in vivo. Poster session presented at the meeting of Australia-China Symposium on Synthetic Biology. Brisbane. 2016 Hao, N., Shearwin, K., & Dodd, I. (2016). Road Rules for Traffic on DNA: Gene Regulation by Encounters between Transcribing RNA Polymerases and DNA-bound Proteins. Poster session presented at the meeting of Synthetic Biology: Engineering, Evolution & Design (SEED). Chicago, USA. 2016 Hao, N., Shearwin, K., & Dodd, I. (2016). Understand DNA looping in vivo - a synthetic biology approach. Poster session presented at the meeting of OCE Cutting Edge Conference in Synthetic Biology. Canberra. 2015 Hao, N., Krishna, S., Shearwin, K., & Dodd, I. (2015). Road Rules for Traffic on DNA: Gene Regulation by Encounters between Transcribing RNA Polymerases and DNA-bound Proteins. Poster session presented at the meeting of 2nd International Synthetic & Systems Biology Summer School. Taormina - Sicily, Italy. 2015 Hao, N. (2015). Understanding and manipulating long-range DNA looping in vivo. Poster session presented at the meeting of ASBMB ComBio conference. Melbourne. 2014 Hao, N. (2014). Road Rules for Traffic on DNA: Gene Regulation by Encounters between Transcribing RNA Polymerases and DNA-bound Proteins. Poster session presented at the meeting of The 13th Asian Conference on Transcription. Melbourne. 2012 Hao, N., Shearwin, K., Dodd, I., Whitelaw, M., & Chapman-Smith, A. (2012). Reverse Bacterial Two Hybrid: A New Tool for Studying Dimeric Protein Interactions. Poster session presented at the meeting of ASBMB ComBio conference. Adelaide. 2009 Hao, N., Shearwin., Dodd, I., Whitelaw, M., & Chapman-Smith, A. (2009). Reverse Bacterial two Hybrid (RevB2H) method for studying protein-protein interactions. Poster session presented at the meeting of Network in Genes and Environment in Development (NGED) Forum. Palm Cove, Queensland. 2009 Hao, N., Shearwin, K., Dodd, I., Whitelaw, M., & Chapman-smith, A. (2009). A novel Reverse Bacterial two Hybrid (RevB2H) method for studying protein-protein interactions and screening for potential therapeutics. Poster session presented at the meeting of Australian Society for Medical Research (ASMR) SA Scientific Meeting. Adelaide. -
Theses
Year Citation 2012 Hao, N. (2012). Regulation of Eukaryotic Transcription by bHLH/PAS Transcription Factors AhR and Arnt. (PhD Thesis, The University of Adelaide). 2007 Hao, N. (2007). Searching for HIF-1α/Arnt PAS Domain Interacting Proteins. (The University of Adelaide). -
Internet Publications
Year Citation 2019 Hao, N. (2019). Conference report, Aspiring Meeting of Young Researchers in Kuala Lumpur. Australian Biochemist. 2015 Hao, N. (2015). Science Under the Volcano - Australian Biochemist Magazine. Australian Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology Inc..
Funding
AusHealth (2024-2025) Shearwin, K., Hao, N., contract research. $300K
AusHealth (2022-2023) Shearwin, K., Vreugde S., Hao, N., Liu, S., Wormald P.J., Fitridge, R., and Bouras G. $310,144
Improving biorefineries by phage-assisted evolution of cytochrome P450 enzyme activity. BTF New collaboration scheme (2022) Shearwin, K., Bell, S., Hao, N., Whelan, F. Beltrame, L. and Harlington, A. $40,000
Biochemical characterization of S. aureus putative ATP-grasp ligase HypA. School of Biological Sciences EMCR Association Small Grants, The University of Adelaide (2021) Hao, N. $ 1,000
Federation of Asian and Oceanian Biochemist & Molecular Biologist YSP travel fellowship, 27th FAOBMB & 44th MSBMB Conference (2019) Hao, N. $3,000
Kick-starting the Australian Bioeconomy with Synthetic Biology. Theo Murphy Initiative (Australia), Australian Academy of Science (2019) Gumulya, Y., Kidd, B., Honkanen, S., Rottet, S., Grau, A., Fabris, M., Abbriano, R., Hao, N., Vavitsas, K. $24,900
Developing orthogonal Cas/anti-Cas pairs as building blocks for genetic circuit design. CSIRO FSP Fellowship (2017-2021) Hao, N. $510,000
Nanomachine v2.0. CSIRO SynBio FSP Pitch Award (2018-2019) Hao, N., Shearwin, K.E., Hartley C., Lee L., and Scott C. $10,000
Logic Gate Control for Biodiversity Protection. CSIRO SynBio FSP Pitch Award (2018) Tizard, M., Cooper, C., Kidd, B., Hao, N., Capon, R. $10,000
Understanding and manipulating DNA looping in long range gene regulation. NHMRC Project Grant APP1100651 (2016-2019) Dodd, I.B., Shearwin, K.E., Sneppen, K. and Hao, N. $351,000
Australian Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (ASBMB) travel fellowship (2015) Hao, N. $3,000
Traffic on DNA: interplay between RNA polymerases and DNA-bound proteins. ARC DECRA fellowship DE150100091 (2015-2017) Hao, N. $366,000
Postgraduate Teaching
BIOTECH_7003 Advanced Research Techniques
BIOTECH_7008 Applied Biotechnology Research and Design
Laboratory placement supervision
2024: Angela Kloutsiniotis, Kaitlin Turland, Hugh Evans, Jack Basso, Sophie Loveys and Madeline Fechner
2023: Sophie Loveys and Amal Mostafa
2022: Sarah Eisemann, Deannon Branch, Julia Leeflang, and Jayden Revink
2021: Jannath Hera, and Sarah Eisemann
2020: Alix Harlington
2019: Emma Becroft
2018: Grace Tulysewski, and Smriti Singh
2017: Grace Tulysewski
2016: Emi Schutz, Daniel Reed
2015: Alejandra Isabel
2014: Trang Pham, Jade Foeng, Andrew J. Hayes, Queenie Tangseefa, Dominique Jackson
2013: Jia Quyen Truong, Byron Shue
2012: Duncan McKenzie
2011: Benjamin Lee (exchange student from Singapore)
2010: Lauren A. Watkins
Undergraduate Teaching
Human Perspectives (SGDE)
Honours in Biochemistry (research grant proposal and thesis assessment)
Honours in Health and Medical Sciences (research grant proposal and thesis assessment)
Undergraduate practical demonstrating
2010 semester 2 Level II MBS Practical series B
2010 semester 1 Level III Biochemistry course
2010 semester 1 Level II MBS Practical series A
2010 semester 1 Level II MBS Practical series C
2009 semester 2 Level II MBS Practical series B
2009 semester 1 Level III Biochemistry course
2009 semester 1 Level II MBS Practical series A
2008 semester 2 Level II MBS Practical series B
2008 semester 1 Level III Biochemistry course
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Current Higher Degree by Research Supervision (University of Adelaide)
Date Role Research Topic Program Degree Type Student Load Student Name 2023 Co-Supervisor Study of bacteriophage protein structures for the production of improved antimicrobial agents Master of Philosophy Master Full Time Ms Sarah Jayne Eisemann -
Past Higher Degree by Research Supervision (University of Adelaide)
Date Role Research Topic Program Degree Type Student Load Student Name 2018 - 2024 Co-Supervisor Development of the PHEARLESS system and its application for directed protein mutagenesis and characterisation of putative endolysin activity Doctor of Philosophy Doctorate Full Time Miss Hannah Rose Bonham 2017 - 2021 Co-Supervisor Investigating catalytically inactive Cas proteins as transcriptional roadblocks Doctor of Philosophy Doctorate Full Time Miss Alana Jane Donnelly
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Memberships
Date Role Membership Country 2017 - ongoing Member Australian Academy of Science EMCR Forum Australia 2016 - ongoing Member Synthetic Biology Australasia (SBA) Australia 2010 - ongoing Member Australian Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (ASBMB) Australia
Connect With Me
External Profiles