Graeme Attwood

Graeme Attwood completed BSc (1983) and MSc (First Class Honours, 1985) degrees at the University of Waikato before moving to the University of Adelaide in South Australia where he started his PhD research.

His PhD involved developing genetic systems for ruminal species of Bacteroides (now called Prevotella) and mapping a bacteriophage and sequencing a plasmid from Selenomonas ruminantium.

He also developed a DNA-based probing technique that allowed the tracking of bacterial strains added to the rumen.

He then took up a postdoctoral position at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in the USA from 1991 to 1993 where he worked on the sequencing and biochemical characterisation of cellulases from the fibre-degrading rumen bacterium Ruminococcus albus and the construction of recombinant Clostridium acetobutylicum strains able to use cellulose as a substrate for solvent production.

In 1993 he returned to New Zealand to a Research Scientist position with AgResearch Ltd, located at the Grasslands Research Institute in Palmerston North.

He worked initially in the Improved Conversion of Plant Protein into Animal Products programme in which he investigated proteolytic rumen bacteria and their role in protein metabolism. This work also led to the isolation of hyper ammonia-producing bacteria, specialized fermenters of peptides and amino acids in the rumen. Some of these organisms were also identified as producers of indole and skatole from ruminal fermentation of tryptophan, which results in off-flavours accumulating in meat and dairy products from pasture-grazed ruminants.

As part of an NSOF project he isolated a bacteriocin-like compound that had inhibitory action against a wide range of rumen bacterial species, and showed antibacterial action against a number of Gram positive, human and animal pathogenic bacteria and the protozoal chicken pathogen, Eimeria.

In 2002 was promoted to Team Leader and secured funding from the Pastoral Greenhouse Gas Research Consortium (PGGRC) to sequence the genome of the rumen methanogen, Methanobrevibacter ruminantium. This on-going programme aims to identify new methanogen-specific targets for the inhibition of ruminant methane.

In 2003 he also secured a New Economy Research Fund (NERF) grant to sequence the genome of the hemicellulose-degrading rumen bacterium, Clostridium proteoclasticum (recently reclassified as Butyrivibrio proteoclasticus). The focus of this project has been the identification and functional characterisation of enzymes involved in hemicellulose degradation.

In 2007 he obtained internal AgResearch Research and Capability Funding to start work on metagenomic analysis of the rumen.

This was followed in 2008 by funding from an AgResearch/CSIRO Livestock Industries postdoctoral initiative that continues to support this metagenomic work.

Also in 2008, he was awarded a renewed NERF grant for a research programme that will combine new cultivation techniques with our existing metagenomics and genomics capabilities to study the plant-adherent rumen microbial community that performs the core function of lignocellulose digestion.