How microbial genetics can improve our world! 

  Host: Associate Professor Amy Cain

  Tuesday 21 October 2025, 6.15pm – 7.30pm 

  Macquarie University

Overview

Microbes are powerful and ancient mini-machines that can thrive in the most extreme environments on earth, like in volcanos or ice-caves. Because of this tough training over time, microbes perform incredible feats that shape our world; from producing life-saving antibiotics to breaking down stubborn waste products like plastics or reducing atmospheric CO2.  

By understanding how microbes perform these valuable tasks, we can exploit them to make ground-breaking biotechnologies to improve our world. The key to harnessing the power of microbes is understanding their genes – the genetic blueprints that underpin these cellular processes. By using “functional genomics” techniques, we can link genes to their function and expose how microbes perform tasks.  

My research discovers microbial genes that allow natural degradation of plastic waste, and we use these genes in novel biotechnologies that can breakdown supermarket polyethylene bags or polyurethane foams. We also apply functional genomics to understand how microbes become resistant to antibiotics, so that we can cleverly design new, innovative antibiotics. Lastly, we have set up Australia’s first caterpillar research facility, as an efficient and ethical animal model alternative, to effectively test our biotechnologies and life-saving drugs in the body, moving them closer to market.

Biography

Associate Professor Amy Cain gained her PhD in Microbiology from the University of Sydney, investigating movement of antibiotic resistance genes in Salmonella between animals and humans. Next Amy moved to Cambridge (UK) to work at the Wellcome Sanger Institute developing bespoke genomics techniques to examine antibiotic resistance gene networks. In Malawi, she joined the Malawi-Liverpool-Wellcome Clinical Research Program to track and sequence hospital-acquired resistant infections, and then worked for Vertex Pharmaceuticals in Oxford (UK) and Boston (USA) to develop new antibiotics. In 2018, Amy moved back to Australia, establishing her own group at Macquarie University.

Currently Amy is an ARC Future Fellow, situated across the School of Natural Sciences, the ARC Centre of Excellence in Synthetic Biology and Applied Biosciences and builds synthetic microbes to degrade waste materials, like plastics. She is developing new antibiotics using functional genomic techniques, novel single-cell microfluidics-based methodology and adaptive evolutionary approaches. She established and is director the Galleria Research Facility, Australia’s first high-throughput in vivo model, used to assess the pathogenicity of microbes, and the toxicity and efficacy of new drugs. She was recently awarded the 2025 Gottschalk Medal by The Australian Academy of Science (AAS) in recognition of her pioneering work against antibiotic resistance.

Contact Us

For more details about the series, contact us at fse.outreach@mq.edu.au.