Professor Chris Franco
Emeritus Professor
College of Medicine and Public Health
Professor Christopher Franco's research career combines both the industrial and academic spheres. For 10 years he lead a successful drug discovery and development group in an International biopharmaceutical company and holds patents for 11 compound families. In 1993, he joined the School of Medicine, as a founding academic in the Biotechnology Program. Now Head, Medical Biotechnology, he manages the Biotechnology teaching and research programs in the School of Medicine. He is Australia's leading actinobacteriologist and continues to discover novel actinobacteria and new bioactives from algae, plant cell culture, mammalian cells and marine organisms. He pioneered the isolation and application of actinobacterial endopytes for sustainable crop production and leads GRDC's multi-insitutional Benificial Microbes Project.
He has extensive international experience, working in the UK, Germany, India, Indonesia, Singapore and China. As International Dean, Faculty of Medicine, Nursing & Health Sciences and the School of Medicine, he manages the Faculty's international collaborations. He collaborates with researchers in Asia, Europe and N. America.
B.Sc. (Hons.) Microbiology (Bombay), 1975
M.Sc. Applied Microbiology (Heriot-Watt, Edinburgh), 1976
Ph.D. Applied Microbiology (Strathclyde, Glasgow), 1980
Australian Eureka Prize 2004: GRDC Award for Environmental Sustainability of Grain Growing for his research on applications of actinobacterial endophytes.
UNESCO Biotechnology Action Committee Professorship in 2000.
Professor of Biotechnology and Head, Medical Biotechnology, College of Medicine & Public Health, Flinders University. Leads a research and teaching active discipline which has over 50 staff and research students, and supervises 6 PhD, 2 Masters, 1 Honours student and 6 research staff.
Course Coordinator, Postgraduate Biotechnology Programs
Chair of the Course Review Committees for Environmental Health (2011); Master of Nanotechnology (2014); and Master of Health and International Development (2015)
Member of the ISBA Actinomycete International Advisory Commitee
Head GRDC's Beneficial Microbes Program.
Industrial Biotechnology:
- Selection and characterisation of industrial microorganisms
- Fermentation technology and bioprocessing
- Plant cell culture for the production of medicinal compounds
- Primary and secondary metabolites
Pharmaceutical Biotechnology:
- Natural product drugs
- Drug discovery, high throughput screening
- Yield optimisation of pharmaceutical-produciing microorganisms
- Purification of drug molecules
- cGMP
Agricultural and Environmental Biotechnology:
- Molecular detection of environmental microbes
- Endophytic and other plant associated microorganisms
- Actinomycete, bacterial and fungal inoculants including biocontrol agents
- Plant microbe interactions including induced systemic resistance
Commercialisation and Entrepreneurship:
Takes students through the Discovery to Market for Biotechnology products and services.
- Biofuels
- Biotechnology
- Fermentation Technology
- Actinomycete Biology
- Environmental Biotechnology and Biodiversity
- Industrial Biotechnology
Previous Employment:
1991-93: Research Fellow, Dept. of Soil Science, Waite Institute, University of Adelaide, Adelaide, with Prof Malcolm Oades& Dr Max Tate. Research on remediation of soil water repellency. Teaching in Agricultural Biotechnology.
1982-91: Principal Research Scientist, Hoechst AG, Pharmaceutical Research, India & Germany. A senior research management position in a multinational pharmaceutical company in drug discovery and pharmaceutical product development.
1981: Postdoctoral Fellow, Microbiology Department University of Tübingen, Germany with Prof. Hans Zähner. Research in the Institute of Biology on developing new biological and chemical screening systems for the detection of novel microbial metabolites from microorganisms.
1979-81: Postdoctoral Research Associate, Microbial Chemistry Lab., University of Manchester, UK, with Prof John Bu-Lock. Optimization of fermenter design for methanogenesis.
FROM JULY 2017:
Head of Medical Biotechnology
UNTIL JUNE 2017:
Committee Membership
University-wide
- International Advisory Committee
- Biotechnology Exec Cttee
- Biotechnology Program Management Cttee & Biotechnology Exam Board
- Biotechnology Advisory Cttee
- Steering Cttee of the Joint Research and Education Centre with Central South University, Changsha, China
Faculty
- Assoc Head (International) and Chair, Faculty of Medicine, Nursing and Health Sciences International Program Cttee
- Strategic Advisory Cttee, Faculty of Medicine, Nursing and Health Sciences
- Faculty of Medicine, Nursing and Health Sciences Board
- Faculty Research Higher Degree Cttee
- Faculty Research Committee
Department/School
- Assistant Dean (International), School of Medicine
- School of Medicine Executive Committee
- Departmental Executive Cttee
- Flinders Medical Science and Technology Executive Cttee, School of Medicine
Course Reviews
- Chair, Bachelor of Environmental Health, 2010
- Chair, Master of Nanotechnology, 2012
- Chair, Master of Health & International Development, 2015
Sturt Rd, Bedford Park
South Australia 5042
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