Chris Greening is a
biochemist
Biochemists are scientists who are trained in biochemistry. They study chemical processes and chemical transformations in living organisms. Biochemists study DNA, proteins and cell parts. The word "biochemist" is a portmanteau of "biological che ...
,
microbiologist
A microbiologist (from Greek ) is a scientist who studies microscopic life forms and processes. This includes study of the growth, interactions and characteristics of microscopic organisms such as bacteria, algae, fungi, and some types of par ...
, and academic. He is a Professor of
Microbiology
Microbiology () is the scientific study of microorganisms, those being unicellular (single cell), multicellular (cell colony), or acellular (lacking cells). Microbiology encompasses numerous sub-disciplines including virology, bacteriology, ...
and leads the One Health Microbiology group and Global Change Research Program of the Biomedicine Discovery Institute at
Monash University
Monash University () is a public research university based in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. Named for prominent World War I general Sir John Monash, it was founded in 1958 and is the second oldest university in the state. The university h ...
in
Melbourne
Melbourne ( ; Boonwurrung/ Woiwurrung: ''Narrm'' or ''Naarm'') is the capital and most populous city of the Australian state of Victoria, and the second-most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Its name generally refers to a me ...
,
Australia.
He is most known for his work on the basis, role, and significance of the
microbial metabolism
Microbial metabolism is the means by which a microbe obtains the energy and nutrients (e.g. carbon) it needs to live and reproduce. Microbes use many different types of metabolic strategies and species can often be differentiated from each other ...
of
trace gases
Trace gases are gases that are present in small amounts within an environment such as a planet's atmosphere. Trace gases in Earth's atmosphere are gases other than nitrogen (78.1%), oxygen (20.9%), and argon (0.934%) which, in combination, make u ...
such as
hydrogen
Hydrogen is the chemical element with the symbol H and atomic number 1. Hydrogen is the lightest element. At standard conditions hydrogen is a gas of diatomic molecules having the formula . It is colorless, odorless, tasteless, non-toxic ...
,
methane
Methane ( , ) is a chemical compound with the chemical formula (one carbon atom bonded to four hydrogen atoms). It is a group-14 hydride, the simplest alkane, and the main constituent of natural gas. The relative abundance of methane on Ear ...
,
carbon monoxide
Carbon monoxide ( chemical formula CO) is a colorless, poisonous, odorless, tasteless, flammable gas that is slightly less dense than air. Carbon monoxide consists of one carbon atom and one oxygen atom connected by a triple bond. It is the si ...
, and
carbon dioxide
Carbon dioxide ( chemical formula ) is a chemical compound made up of molecules that each have one carbon atom covalently double bonded to two oxygen atoms. It is found in the gas state at room temperature. In the air, carbon dioxide is t ...
. He has held prestigious fellowships from the
CSIRO
The Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) is an Australian Government agency responsible for scientific research.
CSIRO works with leading organisations around the world. From its headquarters in Canberra, CSIRO ...
(2014-2016),
Australian Research Council
The Australian Research Council (ARC) is the primary non-medical research funding agency of the Australian Government, distributing more than in grants each year. The Council was established by the ''Australian Research Council Act 2001'', ...
(2017-2019), and
National Health and Medical Research Council
The National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) is the main statutory authority of the Australian Government responsible for medical research. It was the eighth largest research funding body in the world in 2016, and NHMRC-funded rese ...
(2020-2024)
[ and was awarded the Fenner Medal 2022 from the ]Australian Academy of Science
The Australian Academy of Science was founded in 1954 by a group of distinguished Australians, including Australian Fellows of the Royal Society of London. The first president was Sir Mark Oliphant. The academy is modelled after the Royal So ...
. Greening was awarded the Prime Minister's Prize for Life Scientist of the Year in 2023.
Early life and education
Greening was born in a working-class family, and grew up in Wallasey
Wallasey () is a town within the Metropolitan Borough of Wirral, in Merseyside, England; until 1974, it was part of the historic county of Cheshire. It is situated at the mouth of the River Mersey, at the north-eastern corner of the Wirral Pe ...
, Clevedon
Clevedon (, ) is an English seaside town and civil parish in the unitary authority of North Somerset, part of the ceremonial county of Somerset. It recorded a parish population of 21,281 in the United Kingdom Census 2011, estimated at 21,442 ...
, and Nailsea
Nailsea is a town in Somerset, England, southwest of Bristol, and northeast of Weston-super-Mare. The nearest village is Backwell, which lies south of Nailsea on the opposite side of the Bristol to Exeter railway line. Nailsea had a popul ...
. He completed his secondary education at Nailsea School
Nailsea School, located in Nailsea, North Somerset, England, is a mixed secondary school and sixth form. It has Technology and Media Arts College specialist school status, and became an academy on 1 September 2012. Academy status means Nailsea ...
and received scholarships to attend St. Catherine’s College, University of Oxford
The University of Oxford is a collegiate research university in Oxford, England. There is evidence of teaching as early as 1096, making it the oldest university in the English-speaking world and the world's second-oldest university in contin ...
. He graduated with a degree in Molecular and Cellular Biochemistry in 2010. After emigrating to New Zealand, he earned his Ph.D. in Microbiology and Immunology from the University of Otago
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, motto = la, Sapere aude
, mottoeng = Dare to be wise
, established = 1869; 152 years ago
, type = Public research collegiate u ...
in 2014. His dissertation, "Physiological roles of the three iFehydrogenases in Mycobacterium smegmatis", was primarily supervised by Gregory Cook and was formally recognized as "exceptional".
Career
After receiving his doctorate, Greening gained postdoctoral and lecturing experience with short-term positions at the University of Otago
, image_name = University of Otago Registry Building2.jpg
, image_size =
, caption = University clock tower
, motto = la, Sapere aude
, mottoeng = Dare to be wise
, established = 1869; 152 years ago
, type = Public research collegiate u ...
, CSIRO, and Australian National University
The Australian National University (ANU) is a public research university located in Canberra, the capital of Australia. Its main campus in Acton encompasses seven teaching and research colleges, in addition to several national academies and ...
. In 2016, he established his research group at Monash University’s School of Biological Sciences and completed an environmentally-focused ARC DECRA Fellowship. After being awarded a medically-focused NHMRC EL2 Fellowship, he became an Associate Professor at Monash University’s Department of Microbiology in 2020 and was promoted to full Professor in 2022.[ He is the Environmental Microbiology advisor for the Australian Society for Microbiology, and serves as an editor for the journals ''mSystems'' and ''Microbial Genomics''.
]
Research
Greening has studied the use of microbiology to address global challenges, including climate change
In common usage, climate change describes global warming—the ongoing increase in global average temperature—and its effects on Earth's climate system. Climate change in a broader sense also includes previous long-term changes to ...
, infectious disease
An infection is the invasion of tissues by pathogens, their multiplication, and the reaction of host tissues to the infectious agent and the toxins they produce. An infectious disease, also known as a transmissible disease or communicable d ...
, and food
Food is any substance consumed by an organism for nutritional support. Food is usually of plant, animal, or fungal origin, and contains essential nutrients, such as carbohydrates, fats, proteins, vitamins, or minerals. The substance is ...
and water security
Water security is the focused goal of water policy and water management. A society with a high level of water security makes the most of water's benefits for humans and ecosystems and limits the risk of destructive impacts associated with water. T ...
. His group and collaborators integrate the fields of microbial biochemistry, physiology
Physiology (; ) is the scientific study of functions and mechanisms in a living system. As a sub-discipline of biology, physiology focuses on how organisms, organ systems, individual organs, cells, and biomolecules carry out the chemic ...
, genetics
Genetics is the study of genes, genetic variation, and heredity in organisms.Hartl D, Jones E (2005) It is an important branch in biology because heredity is vital to organisms' evolution. Gregor Mendel, a Moravian Augustinian friar worki ...
, ecology
Ecology () is the study of the relationships between living organisms, including humans, and their physical environment. Ecology considers organisms at the individual, population, community, ecosystem, and biosphere level. Ecology overl ...
, biogeochemistry
Biogeochemistry is the scientific discipline that involves the study of the chemical, physical, geological, and biological processes and reactions that govern the composition of the natural environment (including the biosphere, the cryospher ...
, and biotechnology
Biotechnology is the integration of natural sciences and engineering sciences in order to achieve the application of organisms, cells, parts thereof and molecular analogues for products and services. The term ''biotechnology'' was first used b ...
. This depends on using techniques such as metagenomics
Metagenomics is the study of genetic material recovered directly from environmental or clinical samples by a method called sequencing. The broad field may also be referred to as environmental genomics, ecogenomics, community genomics or micr ...
, gas chromatography
Gas chromatography (GC) is a common type of chromatography used in analytical chemistry for separating and analyzing compounds that can be vaporized without decomposition. Typical uses of GC include testing the purity of a particular substance, ...
, cryo-electron microscopy
Cryogenic electron microscopy (cryo-EM) is a cryomicroscopy technique applied on samples cooled to cryogenic temperatures. For biological specimens, the structure is preserved by embedding in an environment of vitreous ice. An aqueous sample sol ...
, and CRISPR interference
CRISPR interference (CRISPRi) is a genetic perturbation technique that allows for sequence-specific repression of gene expression in prokaryotic and eukaryotic cells. It was first developed by Stanley Qi and colleagues in the laboratories of Wen ...
.
Greening co-discovered that atmospheric trace gases are major energy sources for microorganisms. He provided the first genetic proof that microorganisms mediate the major biogeochemical process of atmospheric hydrogen oxidation. Through microbial genetics and biochemistry, he identified the unique hydrogenase A hydrogenase is an enzyme that catalyses the reversible oxidation of molecular hydrogen (H2), as shown below:
Hydrogen uptake () is coupled to the reduction of electron acceptors such as oxygen, nitrate, sulfate, carbon dioxide (), and fumara ...
enzymes that mediate this process, demonstrated that they are important for long-term survival of dormant bacteria, and resolved their structure and mechanism at atomic detail. At the ecosystem scale, he has demonstrated that atmospheric trace gas oxidation is mediated by multiple bacterial and archaeal
Archaea ( ; singular archaeon ) is a domain of single-celled organisms. These microorganisms lack cell nuclei and are therefore prokaryotes. Archaea were initially classified as bacteria, receiving the name archaebacteria (in the Archaebacte ...
phyla, and helps sustain biodiversity and productivity of terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems. Notably, his team have revealed that some extreme environments such as Antarctic desert soils are driven primarily by atmospheric energy sources, rather than photosynthesis. His work has also confirmed the basis and role of atmospheric carbon monoxide oxidation.
Greening has also worked on methane emissions. He has revealed complex metabolic interactions between bacteria and archaea control methane emissions from a range of systems, including soils, oceans, livestock, geothermal springs, hydrocarbon seeps, tree stems, and termite mounds. Through this work, he has also identified novel methanotrophic
Methanotrophs (sometimes called methanophiles) are prokaryotes that metabolize methane as their source of carbon and chemical energy. They are bacteria or archaea, can grow aerobically or anaerobically, and require single-carbon compounds to su ...
bacteria that consume methane at elevated or atmospheric concentrations, including “Candidatus Methylotropicum kingii” from the phylum Gemmatimonadota
The Gemmatimonadota are a phylum of bacteria established in 2003. The phylum contains two classes Gemmatimonadetes and Longimicrobia.
Species
The type species '' Gemmatimonas aurantiaca'' strain T-27T was isolated from activated sludge in a sewa ...
.
Greening is also a chief investigator of several research programs, namely SAEF: Securing Antarctica’s Environmental Future, RISE: Revitalising Informal Settlements and their Environments, the ARC Research Hub for Carbon Utilisation and Recycling, and the Centre to Impact Antimicrobial Resistance. For the RISE program, he developed quantitative PCR
A real-time polymerase chain reaction (real-time PCR, or qPCR) is a laboratory technique of molecular biology based on the polymerase chain reaction (PCR). It monitors the amplification of a targeted DNA molecule during the PCR (i.e., in real ...
cards that enable rapid and sensitive detection of multiple bacterial, viral, protist, and helminth pathogens across any given human, animal, or environmental sample. In the medical space, he has identified new drug targets and antimicrobial resistance mechanisms for tuberculosis, for example by resolving the biosynthesis pathway of the coenzyme F420.
Selected publications
*Greening, C., Berney, M., Hards, K., Cook, G. M., & Conrad, R. (2014). A soil actinobacterium scavenges atmospheric H2 using two membrane-associated, oxygen-dependent iFehydrogenases. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 111(11), 4257-4261.
*Greening, C., Biswas, A., Carere, C. R., Jackson, C. J., Taylor, M. C., Stott, M. B., ... & Morales, S. E. (2016). Genomic and metagenomic surveys of hydrogenase distribution indicate H2 is a widely utilised energy source for microbial growth and survival. The ISME journal, 10(3), 761-777.
*Ji, M., Greening, C., Vanwonterghem, I., Carere, C. R., Bay, S. K., Steen, J. A., ... & Ferrari, B. C. (2017). Atmospheric trace gases support primary production in Antarctic desert surface soil. Nature, 552(7685), 400-403.
*Greening, C., Geier, R., Wang, C., Woods, L. C., Morales, S. E., McDonald, M. J., ... & Mackie, R. I. (2019). Diverse hydrogen production and consumption pathways influence methane production in ruminants. The ISME journal, 13(10), 2617-2632.
*Grinter, R., Ney, B., Brammananth, R., Barlow, C. K., Cordero, P. R., Gillett, D. L., ... & Greening, C. (2020). Cellular and structural basis of synthesis of the unique intermediate dehydro-F420-0 in mycobacteria. Msystems, 5(3), e00389-20.
*Lappan, R., Henry, R., Chown, S. L., Luby, S. P., Higginson, E. E., Bata, L., ... & McCarthy, D. (2021). Monitoring of diverse enteric pathogens across environmental and host reservoirs with TaqMan array cards and standard qPCR: a methodological comparison study. The Lancet Planetary Health, 5(5), e297-e308.
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Greening, Chris
Living people
1987 births
Microbiologists
21st-century biochemists
Alumni of the University of Oxford,
Academic staff of Monash University
University of Otago alumni