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Associate Professor
Simon Mcilroy
Faculty of Health,
School of Biomedical Sciences
Biography
Dr McIlroy is a microbial ecologist specialising in the development and application of methods for the visualisation and characterisation of microorganisms within their natural environment. He spent the early part of his research career working on the microbiology of wastewater and anaerobic digesters for biogas production, earning his PhD from La Trobe University and working as a postdoctoral research fellow at the Centre for Microbial Communities at Aalborg University, Denmark. He now works on anaerobic methanotrophic archaea in freshwater sediments, initially as a senior postdoctoral researcher at the Australian Centre for Ecogenomics (ACE) at the University of Queensland, and now as an ARC Future Fellow at the Centre for Microbiome Research at QUT. Dr McIlroy’s research at QUT applies meta-omics and single cell visualisation techniques to identify novel respiratory strategies employed by archaeal lineages utilising methane in anaerobic sediments. Expanding the known metabolic potential for these lineages will provide important insight into their ecology and potentially demonstrate their role in linking methane oxidation to several global biogeochemical cycles.Personal details
Positions
- Associate Professor
Faculty of Health,
School of Biomedical Sciences
Keywords
Microbiology, Microscopy, Methanotrophy, Wastewater treatment
Research field
Microbiology, Environmental biotechnology, Medical microbiology
Field of Research code, Australian and New Zealand Standard Research Classification (ANZSRC), 2020
Qualifications
- PhD (La Trobe University)
Publications
Filter publications:
A complete list of publications is available at: https://www.qut.edu.au/about/our-people/academic-profiles/simon.mcilroy
Supervision
Current supervisions
- Anaerobic methanotrophic archaea as the gatekeepers of methane emissions from a permafrost landscape
PhD, Principal Supervisor
Other supervisors: Professor Gene Tyson, Dr Heyu Lin - Characterisation of extracellular contractile injection systems (eCIS) in the human gut microbiome
PhD, Associate Supervisor
Other supervisors: Professor Gene Tyson - Characterisation of key microbiota in ruminant digestion in high and low methane emitting cows
PhD, Associate Supervisor
Other supervisors: Professor Phil Pope, Professor Gene Tyson - Illuminating the human gut microbiome: Characterisation of plasmids through plasmid- and genome-based fluorescence in situ hybridisation
PhD, Associate Supervisor
Other supervisors: Professor Gene Tyson - Illuminating the microbial world: genome-based fluorescence visualisation and characterisation of the viruses of the anaerobic methanotrophic Methanoperedenaceae
PhD, Principal Supervisor
Other supervisors: Professor Gene Tyson - Investigating the inter- and intra-species interactions in the cattle holobiome to improve methane-mitigation strategies
PhD, Associate Supervisor
Other supervisors: Professor Phil Pope, Distinguished Professor Greg Cook - Investigation of extracellular contractile injection systems (eCISs) from the human microbiome as potential programmable biotherapeutics
PhD, Associate Supervisor
Other supervisors: Professor Gene Tyson, Dr Andy Leu - Leveraging Metagenomics for Outbreak Detection and Monitoring of Environmental Antimicrobial Resistance
PhD, Associate Supervisor
Other supervisors: Associate Professor Luis Pedro Coelho, Professor Kirsten Spann, Dr Leah Roberts - Pioneering lung cancer microbiome research in Australia: standardising sequencing, bioinformatic analysis and clinical associations between interstate institutions
MPhil, Associate Supervisor
Other supervisors: Dr Mark Adams, Associate Professor Danica Hickey - The role of mobile genetic elements in the adaptability of the anaerobic methanotrophic family Methanoperedenaceae
PhD, Principal Supervisor
Other supervisors: Professor Gene Tyson, Dr Andy Leu
Completed supervisions (Doctorate)
Supervision topics
- Strain-level characterisation and visualisation of microbial communities associated with inflammatory bowel disease
- Illuminating the microbial world using genome-based fluorescence microscopy
- Adaptive evolution of anaerobic methanotrophic (ANME) archaea mediating methane oxidation in freshwater environments (PhD)
- BIOM05 - Application of fluorescence microscopy for the visualization of methane-oxidizing microorganisms in the environment
- Application of fluorescence-activated cell sorting and confocal microscopy for the study of the microbial communities responsible for nutrient removal from domestic wastewater
- Improving human health through the microbiome
The supervisions listed above are only a selection.