2005 Young Tall Poppy Science Award Recipient

Dr Brendan Burns
School of Biotechnology and Biomolecular Sciences, University of New South Wales

Few people have helped NASA to better focus its efforts on the search for life on other planets; Dr Brendan Burns, an astrobiologist, has. Brendan’s research into stromatolites (“living rocks”) spans many fields, ranging from microbiology, functional genomics, and biotechnology, to the physical sciences of geology and palaeontology.

A leading authority on these “living rocks”, Brendan is using living and fossilised stromatolites in Shark Bay, Western Australia, to provide insight about evolutionary significant biological systems and the origins of life on Earth and beyond. Considered the world’s oldest living life form, these primitive, slow-growing organisms appeared on earth 3.5 billion years ago and their oxygen-generating activity has allowed other life forms to develop. “They are excellent natural laboratories, teeming with life that may have helped shape the biology of the early Earth,” he says. “The key to understanding the past is to study the present, and research into early life on Earth and the exciting possibility of life elsewhere may ultimately help define who we are.”

The winner of the 2005 Eureka Prize for Interdisciplinary Scientific Research, Brendan heads an astrobiology research group at the University of New South Wales, which is considered to be a world leader in the study of modern stromatolites. His research has been recognised with awards including an ASM Research Trust Fellowship (2001), Kanagawa Museum of Natural History Award (2003), Japan Society for the Promotion of Science Invitation Fellowship (2004), the NSW Australian Society for Microbiology Members Review Award (2004), and most recently, an ARC Australian Research Fellowship (2006). Brendan was recently invited by the National Science and Technology Center to showcase his research at the World Expo in Japan. He is a Lecturer in the School of Biotechnology and Biomolecular Sciences, received over 1 million dollars in research grant funding since 2000, and published over 30 journal articles.

After completing his PhD in microbiology at UNSW, Brendan was awarded an Alexander von Humboldt Fellowship and conducted research in Munich in 2000- 2001. He was then awarded an ARC Australian Post-doctoral Fellowship to return to UNSW in 2002. Brendan has shown a commitment to communicating science through mass media, film projects and as an expert witness in legal proceedings. “I am still very much enthralled by the wonder of science and am driven by its day-to-day discoveries”, he says. The field of astrobiology is rapidly evolving, and Australian scientists like Brendan are ensuring that they are there for what is an enthralling ride.

Brendan received a Young Tall Poppy Science Award in 2005.