Associate ProfessorMichael Kertesz

Michael Kertesz graduated from Monash University as a synthetic organic chemist (Hons I, Bachelor of Science). However, his postgraduate interests took a more biological direction, and he undertook his PhD at the University of Cambridge under the supervision of Prof Sir Alan Battersby, investigating chlorophyll and bacteriochlorophyll biosynthesis and graduating in 1989. From there he moved to Switzerland for postdoctoral fellowships at the ETH Zürich, working first on bacterial degradation of the herbicide glyphosate (Roundup),mentored by Prof Nikolaus Amrhein, and then on desulfonation of aromatic sulfonate dyestuffs together with Dr Alasdair Cook. He then extended the latter work to develop and lead his own research group working on the biochemistry and genetics of bacterial sulfonate metabolism, especially in soil environments. In 2000 this led him to a senior lectureship at the University of Manchester, where he further extended his microbial ecology interests to investigate the effect of nutrient limitation on soil microbial communities and on environmental gene expression. He has been at the University of Sydney since 2009.