Lab Blog

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When Cells Rebel: the dark side of evolution

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I love dystopian horror. I love to relish in the thrill of disgust from the comfort of safety – a comfort bolstered by the knowledge that such grotesquerie could never actually happen in real life. Zombies don’t exist. Monsters aren’t trying to escape from the underworld. Cancer isn’t contagious. Actually, maybe scratch that last one. . .

You see, nature may not have the imagination of Stephen King, but it does have something even more powerful in its arsenal: mutations. Mutations are to evolution what creativity is to horror writers – the raw material that allows them to conjure up new and wondrous forms. From the most beautiful (buttercups, butterflies, butter yellow bumblebees) to the most horrific (flesh eating bacteria, pandemic inducing viruses, cancer cells).

Evolution favours the fittest individuals, be they butterflies or bacteria. In this case, “the fittest” just means the ones that are most successful at reproducing. If we are talking about koalas, reproduction means making cute little baby koalas. Everyone likes those. But when we’re talking about cancer cells, reproduction means growing and spreading and killing one’s host. Nobody likes that. Even the cancer cells probably wouldn’t like it – because killing their host also means killing themselves in the process. Kind of like a suicide bomber without the political motivation. But evolution is blind to morality and selects for the cute little baby koalas and murderous cancer cells equally – whatever is most efficient at making more copies of itself. Survival of the fittest.

Mutations are constantly arising in nature. Sometimes these make more successful versions of things, sometimes less successful. It’s a bit of a trial-and-error process. And somewhere in that trial-and-error process, a handful of cells have stumbled across the secret to become the most successful cancer cells ever. Super-cancers! How? By finding a sneaky way around that whole unfortunate dying-when-your-host-dies bit.

They do this by taking a leaf out of the life history book of parasites. Like cancer cells, many parasites are reliant on a host to survive. But unlike cancer cells, many parasites have the power to survive the death of their host by simply finding a new host – a power that evolution has also bestowed upon these super-cancers.

Yes, nature has managed to take one of the most awful diseases known to humanity and done perhaps the only thing that could make it worse. It has made it contagious.

Thankfully, such contagious super-cancers are mercifully rare and none of them affect humans (yet). But the rest of the animal kingdom has not fared quite so well. Leukaemia cells drift through the sea like hidden assassins, spreading from one unsuspecting clam to the next. Dogs can get mushroom shaped tumours on their penises from sex with a poorly chosen partner. And one of our most iconic Australian animals, the Tasmanian devil, is at risk of extinction from not only one but two contagious cancers (creatively named Devil Facial Tumour Disease 1 and Devil Facial Tumour Disease 2). Sometimes lightning really does strike twice.

The good news is, this is where we come in. By researching Devil Facial Tumour Disease – one of the most uniquely horrifying and bizarre diseases to ever arise – we aim to understand how it works, how it spreads, how it evolves and, hopefully one day, how we can stop it.

Follow me for more fun and uplifting facts about the animal world!

Patra Petrohilos (PhD Student) is researching the evolution of devil facial tumour disease (DFTD). By investigating anticancer properties of naturally occurring peptides, she is aiming to identify novel agents with therapeutic potential against DFTD. Patra Petrohilos is a PhD student with the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Innovations in Peptide and Protein Science (CIPPS). Follow their exciting research at https://cipps.org.au.

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How to catch a Tasmanian devil

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by Dr Elspeth McLennan (Post-doc)

Tasmanian devils are nocturnal. We set traps during the day and overnight curious devils will come to investigate. The traps we use are made of strong PVC plastic fashioned into a cylinder with a spring trap door (see cover picture). The traps are baited with a devil’s favourite treat, a piece of fresh lamb or wallaby. The meat is tied onto the end of a string, fed through the trap, and tied to a pin which holds the door open.

When a devil comes investigating the smell of the meat, they walk to the end of the trap and take the bait. When the meat is pulled and eaten, the pin holding the door open is pulled free and the door swings shut. A second pin slides forward as the door closes and locks it. Devils spend the night in a cosy enclosed space with a full belly. The field biologists begin checking the traps as soon as the sun is up. As its daylight, we often find devils snoozing in their traps.

To perform a health check on the devil, we place a hessian sack over the opening of the trap, gently tilt the trap and the devil slides forward into the sack. The sack is used to keep the devil’s eyes covered to keep them calm making them easier to handle while we check them over. We take their weight, check their body condition, look for wounds and record pouch young in females. For populations suffering from devil facial tumour disease (DFTD), the disease status of each animal is also recorded. Once the devil has been processed, they are released. On a single trapping trip, we will often see the same devils a few times. The free food and somewhere to crash is clearly a good draw.

Author

Dr Elspeth McLennan

Dr Elspeth McLennan (Post-doc) is working the on the Koala Genome Survey, investigating both neutral and functional diversity across the koala’s range to better understand the impacts of a changing climate. Elspeth has expertise in conservation genetics and using translocation and assisted colonisations as a conservation management tool.

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Koalas and Chlamydia: How can genomics help?

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by Luke Silver (PhD Student) 

The mention of a koala infected with Chlamydia will often be met with rounds of laughter or even concern, “can I get Chlamydia from touching a koala?” For koalas, Chlamydia is no laughing matter with up to 100% of individuals in some populations infected with the bacteria. In many cases infection will lead to blindness, “wet bottom” as a result of bladder infection, infertility and eventually death. Unfortunately, unlike humans, koalas are unable to go to the doctor and receive treatment for the infection. Often koalas are taken to veterinary hospitals after a human interaction (such as vehicle strike or a dog attack) and it is there the infection is noticed and treatment can be administered.

Genomics is the study of the genes and nucleotides contained within an individual’s genome. By studying the genomics of koalas, we have been able to identify important genes which play a vital role in helping a koala clear a Chlamydia infection. One of these genes is a part of the major histocompatibility complex, or MHC, known for its vital role in recognition of pathogens. We are now using the whole genomes of over 400 koalas to investigate how diverse the MHC genes of koalas are across their entire range from northern Queensland to South Australia. A high level of genetic diversity in the MHC results in an individual or population being able to recognise a wider array of pathogens and may be linked to the health of this endangered marsupial. Scientists in other labs are attempting to develop a vaccine which can prevent koalas from contracting the infection in the first place which has shown promising results in early phase testing.

Finally, fortunately you are unable to catch Chlamydia from holding or touching a koala as the species which infects koalas is different from the species which infects humans.

Author

Luke Silver

Luke Silver (PhD Student) is using genomic data to
investigate immune genes in Australian marsupials with a focus on koalas where he is using resequenced genomes to examine patterns of diversity in functional and neutral regions of the genome across the entire east coast of Australia. This work will be used to inform conservation and management decisions in the fight to save our threatened species.

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Making bioinformatics more accessible

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by Dr. Kate Farquharson (Post-doc)

In the AWGG lab, we are generating genomic resources for diverse Australian vertebrates, including birds, marsupials, amphibians and reptiles. However, following bioinformatics instructions can sometimes feel a bit like this:

https://theeconomyofmeaning.com/2014/12/07/funny-on-sunday-how-to-draw-an-owl/

And for non-model organisms, it can feel like being asked to draw an owl when you don’t even know what one looks like (or worse, imagine being given a picture of a human as a reference point). So, how do we make bioinformatics more accessible to people getting started? We have been working hard to carefully document our in-house workflows and contribute to public how-to guides, such as the Genome Assembly with Galaxy guide.

Documenting your work not only helps others but can be a useful way to remember what you have done before! Good documentation can help you to train others, present your methods and ensure your analysis is reproducible. Some tips for documenting your work include:

  • Always keep track of the software and versions used
  • Try out an editor such as Visual Studio Code, which allows you to easily insert code and scripts and integrates well with Github
  • Don’t forget your science brain! It can be very easy to follow a tutorial from start to finish but have no idea what the end result means. A few sentences to justify your approach and explain how you interpret your results will help others use your guide correctly

Good documentation is just one step we are working on as part of the Threatened Species Initiative and ARC Centre of Excellence in Peptides and Protein Science to make genomics and bioinformatics more accessible to conservation end-users.

Author

Dr Kate Farquharson

Dr Kate Farquharson is a Postdoctoral Research Associate in Bioinformatics within the ARC Centre of Excellence for Innovations in Peptide & Protein Science. She applies bioinformatic approaches to the assembly and annotation of genomes and transcriptomes of Australian species to identify targets for peptide discovery. Kate completed her PhD in the AWGG lab in 2020, where she used statistical and molecular genetic approaches to investigate adaptation to captivity in conservation breeding programs. Kate specialises in synthesising, analysing and interpreting data, and in communicating results clearly to a range of audiences.

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My Favorite Culture Shock: Australia’s Wildlife

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by Meadhbh Molloy (PhD Student)

I remember when I learned about the Tasmanian devil and DFTD in my Conservation Medicine textbook as a new master’s student in Virginia, USA. Since I was a child, I loved learning about different animals from all over the world but admittedly, I did know little about the Tasmanian devil. I was inspired by the many amazing researchers that were working on their conservation. I kept thinking about the Tasmanian devil throughout my master’s program and thought that maybe…I can go to Australia…and research Tasmanian devils as well for my PhD (I remember my first Zoom meeting with Carolyn…I was so excited!). After many more Zoom meetings, proposal drafts, a scholarship offer (thank you American Australian Association!), and a pandemic, I finally arrived in Sydney in August 2022. While I was eagerly looking forward to the first time I would see a Tasmanian devil, I have some honorable mentions of the other wildlife I have seen.

The mammals. This is my favorite taxonomic group, so I was most excited to see the mammals of Australia. I’ve seen potoroos scampering about, fruit bats flying at dusk, koalas at a sanctuary in Brisbane, an echidna crossing the road near Royal National Park, and of course the iconic kangaroo grazing right by my camping site in Jervis Bay. The Virginia opossum is our only native marsupial in North America. I was delighted to see brushtail possums (the arguably cuter cousin) in trees and sidewalks in the city, and digging through our food while camping. We also have a mammal that likes to dig through our stuff at campsites- the American black bear. It’s ok! You can put all your food up in a “bear bag” and it (mostly) helps.

The spiders. When I was researching my move to Australia, I came across a blog post titled “Every American remembers their first huntsman spider”. I thought “oh, well I’ll be in a city, they probably don’t get that big, assuming they are even there!”. Wrong. Listen, I appreciate spiders and their ecological role. I know they are probably “more scared of me than I am of them”. That does not mean I was calm and collected when I saw my first huntsman on the bathroom floor. Back at home we have big spiders (mainly wolf) that roam around, but they are no match for a huntsman’s speed! While I’m still a little scared of spiders, my definition of what a large spider is has certainly changed.

All the birds! It’s hard to pick a favorite Australian bird, but I would have to go with the kookaburra (even though one stole the sausage right out of my hands at a barbecue). The first time I heard one, it was 5:30am and I thought a monkey was outside my apartment window. We also don’t have wild parrots where I am from, so my phone is now filled with photos of beautiful white cockatoos and rainbow lorikeets. I remember going on a walk around my new neighborhood within the first few days of arriving. I saw a magnificent bird and told my roommate, Kimberley, about it when I returned. The bird had long legs, a beautifully contrasting white and black body, and was strutting around a park. Upon showing her a photo she said “oh yeah, a bin chicken”.  A bin chicken? Not the nicest name. I now understand why they are called that.

I’ve seen many other amazing animals while traveling around Australia, including saltwater crocodiles near Port Douglas, stunning marine life while snorkeling at the Great Barrier Reef, and even a camel when I visited Uluru (it was well-timed that I read “Tracks” by Robyn Davidson before my trip). I happened to feel particularly homesick when I went to Taronga Zoo on a nice spring day, only a couple months after I landed in Sydney. I arrived at the enclosure that I was most excited to see. I have waited a long time to come to Australia, and The Tasmanian devil has morphed from being the topic of one of my research chapters, to being a symbol of resilience and patience for my entire PhD. Immediately, the Tasmanian devil got up from a shady spot and walked across the enclosure to lie down in front of me. Did this little devil know it would be the first devil I would see in person, and knew the weight of this moment? Obviously not, it just wanted to sunbathe. Of all the animals I have seen so far, the Tasmanian devil remains to be my favorite. I look forward to seeing more of Australia’s wildlife before I return to the United States.

Author

Meadhbh Molloy (PhD Student) is characterising the gut microbiome profile of Tasmanian devils at multiple locations across Tasmania

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What my PhD has taught me: Turtles are awesome

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by Holly Nelson (PhD Student)

So, you probably think Tasmanian Devils are adorable and Koalas are super cute. Well, let me tell you about turtles and four quick reasons why they’re awesome.

Person holding turtle - Shane Ruming NSW DPE

1. Free rent: Imagine having a portable, self-contained home acquired at birth, the Sydney housing market would be the least of your worries. Unlike hermit crabs, the shells of these little keratin caravans are an extension of their spine and are the equivalent of a ribcage.

2. Solar panel: A turtle’s shell is more than its home. Not only is it a protective barrier against predators, turtles also use it to synthesise vitamin D from UV light which is needed for bone and shell growth. Not only this, turtles have nerve receptors in their shells, making them suckers for butt scratches.

3. Mixed signals: If you’ve ever seen a turtle slapping another turtle, one word, foreplay. Yes, turtles slap each other’s faces to convey affection and to attract a mate. A male turtle will slap a females face multiple times to make it clear he digs her. No mixed signals in the turtle world.

4. Realer than Jurassic World: Who needs CGI when you have real life dinosaurs still roaming the earth? These little guys date back over 220 million years to the time of the dinosaurs – woah! So don’t waste your time watching the new Jurassic world movie (wasn’t that good anyway), enjoy some turtle videos instead.

Although there’s a never-ending list of intriguing facts about turtles, hopefully one of these points has made you appreciate these underrated little critters a bit more.

Author

Holly Nelson (PhD Student) is working on how we can use genomics to revolutionise threatened species management. From genome assembly to downstream analyses using whole-genome data, Holly is using her work to answer genetic questions on the Bellinger River Snapping Turtle, Koala, and other threatened species. Her work, in partnership with the NSW Governments Saving Our Species program, aims to create more robust conservation strategies that can be developed and applied together with wildlife managers.

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Diversity in the Dark: the hidden wonders of subterranean life

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by Toby Kovacs (PhD Student)

Australia is famous for its unique flora and fauna, harbouring some of the most unique and highly endemic groups of organisms. When I’m sitting around with my family discussing Australian biodiversity, often the first places we think of are the rainforests, the Great Barrier Reef or the hyper-biodiverse region of South Western Australia. We do unfortunately, often go without mentioning, the plethora of small, white and blind creepy crawlies living directly beneath our feet (quick have a look).

Not many people know that Australia contains an extraordinary level of subterranean (underground) life, living in the shadows. Scientists have long considered cave systems as natural ‘evolutionary laboratories’ due to the apparent simplicity of cave ecosystems. However, surprisingly few studies have contributed to our broad understanding of subterranean evolution. Subterranean fauna are characterised by their troglomorphic (cave adapted) features resulting from the loss of traits no longer required in the absence of light. These include the loss of pigment and eyes, as well as the elongation of antennae, legs and body. Although caves are the most well-known subterranean landscape, because of their accessibility and sick stalactites and stalagmites (Sydneysiders should check out the Jenolan Caves), they are not the only place you can find subterranean fauna (think a little deeper).

Modern subterranean surveys using deep bore holes and subterranean traps have found that inhabitable landscapes extend well beyond the observable caves. In the last decade a diverse array of life has been discovered in previously inaccessible non-cave subterranean landscapes. Australia, in particular the Western Australian Pilbara and Yilgarn regions, contains some of the most biodiverse non-cave subterranean landscapes known, predicted to contain ~3000 species (Halse 2014). Animals inhabit tiny, interconnected air pockets up to 150 m below the surface, where the air remains humid and relatively cool compared to the scorching surface temperatures. Here you can find spiders, cockroaches, beetles, isopods, centipedes, millipedes, pseudoscorpions, fish, crustaceans and even flies. Unfortunately, mining is abundant in these regions and conservation strategies for subterranean fauna are limited due to the vast majority of species being undescribed. However, genetic analysis provides a powerful tool for identifying species and assessing biodiversity in subterranean landscapes. If you’re interested in exploring the available specimen collections don’t hesitate to reach out, there’s so much work to be done!

 If you’re interested in visiting caves check out:

If you want to learn more about subterranean fauna check out:

  • Culver D.C., Pipan T. 2019. The Biology of Caves and Other Subterranean Habitats. Oxford University Press.
  • Halse S.A., Pearson G.B. 2014. Troglofauna in the vadose zone: Comparison of scraping and trapping results and sampling adequacy. Subterr. Biol. 13:17–34.

Author:

Toby Kovacs

Toby Kovacs (PhD Student) I am using historical and modern Koala genomes to assess shifts in functional diversity over time, estimate genomic mutation rates, and test for signatures of local adaptation. I have a background in phylogenetics and molecular evolution and am completing my PhD in the Molecular Ecology, Evolution and Phylogenetics Lab in collaboration with the Australian Wildlife Genomics Group and the Center for Evolutionary Hologenomics (University of Copenhagen)

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“It’s an iterative process” – lessons learnt during the first year of my PhD

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by Andrea Schraven (PhD Student)

I began my PhD in July 2021, and in May 2022 I sat down with my panel to confirm my candidature. Although I found the lead up to my confirmation unnecessarily daunting, I am glad I have ticked this major milestone off. Now fully immersed into my research project, I want to share a couple of the big lessons I’ve learnt over the past year.

 

Read. I came in with no prior knowledge of population genetics, which is an integral part of my project. So having the first four months stuck at home in a COVID lockdown had some perks, it allowed me to buckle down and start reading. I read everything, from theoretical concepts to current literature, I stalked experts in the field on google scholar and sought out the publications of my other lab members (a MUST DO when starting in a new lab), and within a month I had filled an entire notebook. Reading the current literature is a constant practise and I have slowly learnt to be more systematic about it to save time, this is important as other tasks continuously pile up.

 

Record everything. I like to draw out my ideas and process them on paper, leaving the more stringent writing for my laptop. But whether you prefer the “old school” way of pen and paper or use only the computer, get it down. When I got further along with my research, I found the most essential part of developing my project (with reminders from my supervisors), was not the writing up of the experimental design, codes, or analyses I was using but recording the decisions I was making along the way. This has saved me so much headache in the long run, especially when I’m asked why I chose to go in a certain direction.

 

Sometimes doing nothing at all is progress. One of the best pieces of advice my supervisors gave me early on was to take what I have learnt from my readings and with the broad objectives of my project go and sit quietly to think. I started to implement this by stepping away from computer, and with just my pen and paper I’d spend hours thinking of how I could apply these grand concepts to my project. Sometimes the better half of a day would go by with the feeling that I hadn’t accomplished anything. This is when I’d take whatever ideas I had back to my supervisors to discuss and flesh out actionable steps, and sometimes those ideas never panned out or weren’t feasible, whereas others really caught on and I am currently implementing them.

 

Admin chores. Finally, those pesky administrative tasks and online modules that everyone hates doing, rip the band aid off from the beginning and get them over and done with.

Author:

Andrea Schraven (PhD Student; co-supervised with Dr Catherine Grueber) is projecting the long-term impacts of supplementation to improve the status of wild Tasmanian devil populations with the ongoing threat of DFTD. By evaluating population genetic and fitness data before and after translocations, she is comparing how populations change over a few generations, and then feeding the data into computational models to simulate “evolutionary time”. The results will directly inform conservation management decisions for the species long-term recovery.

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Holidays in the Sun

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by Patra Petrohilos (PhD Student) 

I am not a seasoned traveller.

I can count the number of times I have been on a plane on my fingers. The only time one of those planes took me overseas was 20 years ago.

Then I heard about a summer school that was being held in Cambridge on the evolutionary biology and ecology of cancer. When my supervisors suggested I apply to attend, I reacted pretty much as if they’d suggested I apply for the first manned mission to Mars. That’s the kind of amazing thing you fantasise about. Not the kind of thing you get to do in real life.

Despite my unworldliness, I had heard of Cambridge. I knew it was home to the third oldest university in the world – one so old that it predated the Aztec Empire. And I knew it was “a long way away”. But it wasn’t until I was sitting on a plane for fourteen hours straight (and then a second plane for an additional seven hours) that I appreciated what “a long way away” actually meant.

“How long was your flight?” a European PhD student asked me soon after I arrived.

“Well, the first one was fourteen hours.”

I’m not sure what shocked her more – the fact that I’d had to endure a fourteen-hour flight, or the fact that after such obscene amount of time I was still only partway to my destination. Either way – it was reassuring to not be the only one who hadn’t realised just how far “a long way away” can actually be.

And so began one of the best weeks of my entire life:

There were morning walks through the lush forest.

SquirrelThere were squirrels frolicking in the greenery. Like an Enid Blyton book come to life!

Dining Hall and foodThere were fancy meals in even fancier dining halls. I basically spent my days pretending to be a rich character in a Jane Austen novel.

Pub

There were pints of beer in 16th century pubs shared with new friends from all over the world.

New friends with job descriptions I didn’t even know existed! (Exciting and exotic sounding things like “fish vet” and “mathematical oncologist”). I told them excitedly about my project and listened, enthralled, as they told me about theirs. We attended workshops on evolution and mathematical modelling and game theory and applying landscape ecology methods to cancer research.

But back to my favourite part – those 16th century pubs. I was determined to try all the exotic British foods that I only knew from books – toad in the hole, black pudding, pickled eggs. Pickled eggs! Imagine my delight to see an entire jar of them glistening temptingly behind the bar.

“Would you like the full experience?” the bartender asked me.

When someone asks if you want the full experience, the answer is always “yes”. In this case, the full experience turned out to be crushing up a bag of salt and vinegar chips before rolling your pickled egg in the salty, sour, crunchy crumbs of pure deliciousness.

Pickled eggs - Salt and vinegar chips

I clutched my English delicacy with glee as I eagerly headed back to our table. For some reason, my new friends looked slightly less excited with my find than I was. Their facial expressions spanned the entire gamut of confusion, from shock to amusement to admiration at my bravery. Evidently, they were fellow foreigners like me, I told myself, unfamiliar with the fineries of traditional English bar snacks.

And then – “I have never in my life seen anyone actually order a pickled egg,” a lovely English doctor announced.

Ok so maybe it was less a British delicacy and more something they tell stupid Australian tourists. It was still delicious.

Cambridge had a magic that I had thought only existed in literature. The entire trip felt like falling into the pages of my favourite childhood books, like I had finally been handed my letter from Hogwarts. I was Alice in a wonderland of history. I saw baby swans as I went punting down the Cam River.

I was thrilled to drink beer at the Eagle – that famous Cambridge pub where the structure of DNA was first announced. I was even more thrilled to see that someone had the gumption to add Dr Rosalind Franklin’s name to the plaque out the front.

I even loved the charming signs telling me to wash my duvet.

I returned to Sydney, energised and inspired; armed with a renewed fervour to attack my PhD. I can’t wait to carve out my own tiny sliver of novelty in the monolith of human knowledge so that I can tentatively place it upon the shoulders of the giants who came before me. Thank you so much to my supervisors Professor Kathy Belov, Dr Carolyn Hogg and Dr Emma Peel for making this happen.

Author:

Patra Petrohilos (PhD Student) is researching the evolution of devil facial tumour disease (DFTD). By investigating anticancer properties of naturally occurring peptides, she is aiming to identify novel agents with therapeutic potential against DFTD.

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My Journey to a Wildlife Conservation Degree

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by Lucy Ockert (2022 Honours Student)

Are you thinking about enrolling in a Bachelor of Science/Bachelor of Advanced Studies (Taronga Wildlife Conservation) but not sure if it’s the right degree for you? Two years ago, I was in a similar situation. I had originally enrolled in a Bachelor of Science at USYD, majoring in ‘Ecology & Evolutionary Biology’ and ‘Immunology & Pathology’. I always knew that I wanted to pursue science, yet there are so many different fields to choose from, being forced to decide straight after high school after being exposed to a tiny piece of the scientific puzzle. I enrolled in these two majors to give myself the opportunity to learn about two opposing fields of biological science and discover which one I wanted to pursue. While I found all my subjects incredibly interesting, halfway through my degree I realised that I wanted to contribute to conservation science and help remedy the ecological damage caused by humans over the past few centuries. I wanted to transfer into a major which was more focused on conservation than just biology or ecology – that’s when I found out about the Wildlife Conservation major in partnership with the Taronga Conservation Society Australia. Despite being a new degree, only starting the year I first enrolled in University, I knew it was the perfect degree for me. Many of my credit points transferred over from my Ecology & Evolutionary Biology major which was a bonus. I overloaded on subjects in my third year to catch up, and while challenging, it was worth it. The amazing teaching staff and small cohort form a tight-knit community of avid conservationists and creates an amazing environment to learn about all the skills needed to assist in wildlife conservation. We recently went to Taronga Western Plains Zoo for a week to learn about their conservation programs. It was a great opportunity to see first-hand the theories we have been learning about throughout the degree. We also recently completed a unit surrounding the health and welfare of wildlife where we learnt how to conduct diagnostic tests for stress and disease. We also were able to conduct a post-mortem on a (opportunistically collected) kangaroo. I’ve been able to gain a combination of experiences that would not have been possible in another degree and feel very fortunate because of it.

This year I started honours with AWGG, characterising the pouch microbiome of an extremely threatened and iconic species – the Tasmanian devil. I found this degree to be a perfect mix of theory and practice, providing me with the skills to eventually work in a field I am truly passionate about. I hope to continue with research, aiming to start a PhD next year after conducting some conservation volunteering in biodiversity hotspots around the world! If you’re not sure what you want to do but are interested in science and wildlife, I would recommend looking into the degree. Either way, you can always transfer if you change your mind!

Author:

Lucy Ockert

Lucy Ockert (2022 Honours Student) is characterising the pouch microbiome in lactating and non-lactating Tasmanian devils to understand the immunological protection of marsupial pouch young provided by cathelicidins.