Dr Brendan Burns

Bsc (Hons), PhD, The University of New South Wales, MASM

Contact Details:   Phone: 02 9385 3659 Fax: 02 9385 1519 Email: brendan.burns@unsw.edu.au

Brendan Burns is an ARC Research Fellow and Senior Lecturer at The University of New South Wales, Sydney. He is also Assistant Director of the Australian Centre for Astrobiology based at this university.

Brendan completed his PhD in microbiology at The University of New South Wales in 1999. From here, he was awarded a highly prestigious Alexander von Humboldt Fellowship and conducted a post-doc in Munich, Germany from 2000-2001. He was then awarded an ARC Australian Post-doctoral Fellowship to return to UNSW in 2002. Since then he has directed research on the Shark Bay stromatolites, complex geomicrobial communities that are analogues of the very earliest evidence of life on Earth. Stromatolites, or ‘living rocks’, are excellent natural laboratories, teeming with life that may have helped shape the biology of the early Earth.

The key to understanding the past is to study the present, and Dr Burns’ research team have used stromatolites as excellent model systems to address important evolutionary questions. Employing a polyphasic approach of modern microbial and cutting-edge metagenomic techniques Brendan is seeking to characterise the functional complexity of these microbial systems. The findings and implications from this study impact on a wide range of areas, including fields such as microbial ecology and physiology, molecular biology, combinatorial biosynthesis, evolution, and geology, all encompassing the emerging discipline of astrobiology. Using these ancient life forms as blueprints, Brendan has also consulted with NASA to better focus efforts on the search for signals that may help in the detection of life on other planets. Aside from the advancement of human knowledge, this research has the potential to impact on areas such as economics, theology, and ethics, as well as other philosophical issues that may ultimately define who we are.

Nationally, his research was recognised recently with the award of the 2005 Eureka Prize for Interdisciplinary Scientific Research, in collaboration with colleagues Brett Neilan and Malcolm Walter, also at the ACA. These are Australia's premier science awards and an extremely prestigious honour. Other awards include an ASM Research Trust Fellowship (2001), Kanagawa Museum of Natural History Award (2003), Australia Institute of Political Science Tall Poppy Award (2005), and a Japan Society for the Promotion of Science Invitation Fellowship (2005). As a result of this latter Fellowship Brendan was offered a visiting Associate Professor appointment at the University of Tsukuba. As an early career researcher, Brendan has over 40 peer-reviewed publications, 5 book chapters, plus over 50 conference proceedings, and has received over $1.3m total research grant funding since 2000. Brendan has been invited to present his work at many national and international meetings, and was recently actively involved in assisting the organising committee of the 2008 Astrobiology Science Conference, the major gathering in this field.

Brendan has also demonstrated a real commitment to communicating science to the general public with numerous radio and print articles, involvement in film projects (a 3D IMAX movie directed by James Cameron), appearances in court as an expert witness, and an invitation by the National Science and Technology Center to showcase his research at the 2005 World Expo in Japan, an event that had over 20 million attendees.

Outside of science, Brendan is a keen football (soccer) player, and has even tried his hand at being an amateur clown and magician.