Staff profile

Dr Christian Barth

Lecturer

Faculty of Science, Technology and Engineering

School of Life Sciences
Department of Microbiology

Melbourne (Bundoora)

 

Area of study

Biochemistry and Molecular Biology
Genetics
Microbiology

Brief Profile

Christian Barth completed his PhD at the Max-Planck-Institute for Biochemistry in Munich, Germany. He came to Australia in 1994 as a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Microbiology, La Trobe University, where he obtained a lecturering position in 1999. His research interests are

  • Protein targeting to mitochondria
  • Mitochondrial mutations and disease
  • Identification and characterization of nuclear-encoded mitochondrial proteins and their contribution to the biogenesis and function of mitochondria
  • Promoter structures of the mitochondrial genome, mitochondrial transcription and transcript processing
  • Replication and maintenance of the mitochondrial genome

Research interests

Mitochondria biogenesis and disease

- Mitochondrial biogenesis

Mitochondrial genetics

- Mitochondrial DNA maintenance and repair

- Mitochondrial transcription and transcript processing

Teaching Units

MIC2MI, Introductory Microbiology; MIC2ID, Topics in Infectious Disease; MIC3AM, Advanced Microbiology; MIC4HNA and MIC4HNB, Honours course in Microbiology

Recent Publications

  1. Barth, C., Greferath, U., Kotsifas, M., and Fisher, P.R. (1999). Polycistronic transcription and editing of the mitochondrial small subunit (SSU) ribosomal RNA in Dictyostelium discoideum. Current Genetics 36, 55-61.
  2. Barth, C., Greferath, U., Kotsifas, M., Tanaka, Y., Alexander, S., Alexander, H., and Fisher, P.R. (2001). Transcript mapping and processing of mitochondrial RNA in Dictyostelium discoideum. Current Genetics 39, 355-364.
  3. Gilson, P.R., Yu, X-C., Hereld, D., Barth, C., Savage, A., Kiefel, B.R., Lay, S.T., Fisher, P.R., Margolin, W., and Beech, P.L. (2003). Two Dictyostelium orthologs of the prokaryotic cell division protein, FtsZ, localize to mitochondria and are required for the maintenance of normal mitochondrial morphology. Eukaryotic Cell 2, 1315-1326.
  4. Barth, C., Le, P., and Fisher, P.R. (2007). Mitochondrial biology and disease in Dictyostelium. International Review of Cytology 263, 207-252.
  5. Le, P., Fisher, P.R. and Barth, C. (2009). Transcription of the Dictyostelium discoideum mitochondrial genome occurs from a single initiation site. RNA 15, 2321-2330.
  6. Greferath, U., Kambourakis, M., Barth, C., Fletcher, E.L., and Murphy, M. (2009). Characterization of histamine projections and their potential cellular targets in the mouse retina. Neuroscience 158, 932-944.
  7. Barth, C., Kennedy, L. and Fisher, P.R. (2012). Mitochondrial Gene Expression and Dysfunction in Model Protozoa. In Bullerwell, CE (ed.). Organelle Genetics - Evolution of Organelle Genomes and Gene Expression, Springer, Berlin.

Research projects

 

  • Protein targeting to mitochondria
  • Mitochondrial mutations and disease
  • Identification and characterization of nuclear-encoded mitochondrial proteins and their contribution to the biogenesis and function of mitochondria
  • Promoter structures of the mitochondrial genome, mitochondrial transcription and transcript processing
  • Replication and maintenance of the mitochondrial genome