SH Cheng - Life Science and Medicine

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Hannah Brown

Dr

01/11/1996

RA398

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+61416481637

20/111-117 Mcevoy St
Alexandria
Australia

Archaea are a distinct domain of life which are the last microbial ancestors of eukaryotes and humans. Archaea are famous of dominating extreme habitats, like hydrothermal vents, Antarctic lakes, and hypersaline lakes. Since 2019, I have been researching various aspects of the biology of archaea, with a special interest in their cytoskeleton proteins - proteins which are core to almost all fundamental cellular processes.

Many scientists, and even biologists, have never heard of archaea, given they are a relatively recent discovery in the word of microbiology and are often mistaken for bacteria. At the 2025 Hong Kong Laureate Forum I intend to present my work and network with international peers, allowing me to share my knowledge in this unique area of life sciences. I believe that my research has contributed significantly to our understanding of the evolution of life on earth, and that this would be of great interest to the attendees of the 2025 Hong Kong Laureate Forum.

It would be a privilege to attend this years Hong Kong Laureate forum, and it would be of great benefit to my career as I develop my independence and build strong professional networks as a researcher.

Postdoc

Molecular Microbiology, Cell biology (Life Sciences)

Australian Institute for Microbiology and Infection, University of Technology Sydney

Sydney, Australia

I am the current national treasurer of Joint Academic Microbiology Seminars.
I have listed several awards and prices in my CV, but ome notable awards include:
• The first Australian Symposium on Prokaryotic Molecular Genetics and Cell Biology, 2021 – winner of the speaker prize
• EMBO workshop on ‘Molecular Biology of Archaea’, Frankfurt, Germany, 2022 – winner of the speaker prize
• Joint Academic Microbiology Seminars 12th Symposium, 2023 – winner of poster prize
• Australian Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology Symposium, Canberra, Australia, 2023 – winner of the Sydney Protein Group speaker prize.
• Thompson Prize finalist

Archaea are a domain of life, distinct from bacteria and eukaryotes, which represent an important stepping-stone in the evolutionary history of life on earth. Despite this, several fundamental aspects of archaeal cell biology remain understudied.
One primary characteristic of all cell types are cytoskeletal proteins. The eukaryotic cytoskeleton is vastly complex, and is key to the intracellular organisation, structure, and development of cells. One hallmark of the eukaryotic cytoskeleton is that it utilises sophisticated mechanisms that enable extensive adaptability and multifunctionality in various cell types and conditions. The bacterial cytoskeleton is comparatively simpler, and it is not yet clear how the highly sophisticated mechanisms and multifunctionality of the eukaryotic cytoskeleton evolved. As the closest prokaryotic relatives to eukaryotes, archaea may hold important clues that can fill this gap in our understanding of cytoskeleton evolution.
My research has primarily focused on investigating the functions and evolutionary history of tubulin homologues (CetZs) in halophilic archaea. Taken together, the studies which I have contributed to demonstrate that these archaeal relatives of eukaryotic tubulin also exhibit multifunctionality, suggesting that specificity and complexity of cytoskeletal protein function emerged in archaea, accompanying eukaryogenesis around two billion years ago.