DIRECTOR

IMBM

Professor Don Cowan trained as an enzymologist and graduated from the University of Waikato, New Zealand in 1981. After a period of post-doctoral research, he took up a tenured Lectureship in the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at University College London in 1985. In 2001 he moved, as Associate Professor, to take the Chair of Microbiology at UWC. He established ARCAM as a formal University Centre in October 2001. During his research career he has published over 140 research papers, reviews and book chapters. He sits on the Editorial Boards of 8 international journals. Don Cowan was promoted to Senior Professor in 2004 and elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society of South Africa in 2005.

Latest Publications

Chapters:

21.     Berjak, P, Cowan, DA, Cowling, R, Pammenter N, Scholes, R. (2009) Biological Sciences. Ch. 5 in The State of Science in South Africa. Diab, R, Gevers, W., Eds, ASSAf Publ., pp. 133-163.

22.     Kirby, BM, Vengadajellum, CJ, Burton, SG, Cowan, DA. (2010) Anthropogenically-created habitats – coal, coal mines and spoil heaps. In: Timmis, Kenneth N. (Ed.) Handbook of Hydrocarbon and Lipid Microbiology, Springer Heidelberg, Vol 3, pp. 2277-2292.

23.     Cowan, DA, Tuffin, IM, Robb, F. (2010) ‘‘Sequence First, Ask Questions Later’’: The Impact of Next Generation-Omics on the Discovery of Novel Microbial and Lipid Hydrocarbon Metabolism. In: Timmis, Kenneth N. (Ed.) Handbook of Hydrocarbon and Lipid Microbiology, Springer Heidelberg, Vol 4, pp. 3367-3374.

24.     Cowan, DA, Khan, N, Heath, C, Mutondo, M. (2010) Microbiology of Antarctic terrestrial soils and rocks. Ch. 1 in Polar Microbiology: The Ecology, Biodiversity and Bioremediation Potential of Microorganisms in Extremely Cold Environments. Atlas, R, Aislabie, J, Bej, A, Eds. CRC Press, pp. 1-30

25.     Golyshin, P, Cowan, DA, Kirby, B, Meiring, T. (2010) Extremophilic enzymes. Ch. In Methods in Industrial Microbiology and Biotechnology, AT Bull, ed. Accepted for publication.

26.     Taylor, MP, Van Zyl, L, Tuffin, M, Cowan, DA. (2010) Extremophiles and biotechnology: How far have we come?  Ch. In Extremophiles: Microbiology and Biotechnology. Antinori, R., ed.  Horizon Press. Accepted for Publication

27.     Meiring, T. L., Mulako, I., Tuffin, M., Meyer, Q., Cowan, DA. (2010) Retrieval of Full Length Functional Genes using Subtractive Hybridization Magnetic Bead Capture. In:  W. Streit and R. Daniel (Ed.) Metagenomics: Methods in Molecular Biology, Humana Press Inc. Totowa NJ, USA. Accepted for publication.

28.     Kirby, BM, Le Roes-Hill, M, Cary, SC, Burton, SG, Tuffin, IM, Cowan, DA. Actinobacterial diversity associated with Antarctic Dry Valley mineral soils. In Handbook of Molecular Microbial Ecology II: Metagenomics in Different Habitats, Frans J. de Bruijn, Ed.,  John Wiley & Sons, New Jersey. Accepted for publication.

29.     Mutondo, M, Huddy, RJ, Bauer, R, Tuffin, IM, Cowan, DA. (2010) Metagenomic gene discovery.  Ch. 15 in Metagenomics and its Applications in Agriculture, Biomedicine and Environmental Studies. RW Li, Ed. In Press.

Papers:

156.    Babalola, OO, Kirby, BM, Le Roes-Hill, M, Cook, AE, Cary, SC, Burton, SG, Cowan, DA. (2009) Phylogenetic analysis of actinobacterial populations associated with Antarctic Dry Valley mineral soils. Envir. Microbiol. 11:566-576

157.    le Roes-Hill, M, Rohland, J, Meyers, PR, Cowan, DA, Burton, SG. (2009) Streptomyces hypolithicus sp. nov., a novel streptomycete isolated from a hypolith community, Antarctica. Int. J. System. Evol. Microbiol. 59:2033-2036

158.    Taylor, M, Eley, K, Martin, S, Tuffin, IM, Burton, SG, Cowan DA (2009) Thermophilic ethanologenesis. Future prospects for second generation ethanol production. Trends Biotechnol. 27:398-405

159.    Ruiz Sebastián, C, Sink, KJ, McClanahan, TR, Cowan, DA (2009) Bleaching response of corals and their Symbiodinium communities in southern Africa. Marine Biology [Epub ahead of print] DOI 10.1007/s00227-009-1236-8

160.    Heath, C, Hu, XP, Cary, SC, Cowan, DA. (2009) Isolation and characterisation of a novel, low-temperature-active alkaliphilic esterase from an Antarctic desert soil metagenome. Appl. Environ. Microbiol. 75:4657-4659

161.    Pagaling, E, Wang, H, Venables, M, Wallace, A, Grant, WD, Cowan, DA, Jones, BE, Ma, Y, Ventosa, A, Heaphy, S. (2009) Microbial biogeography of six salt lakes in Inner Mongolia and one salt lake in Argentina.  Appl. Environ. Microbiol. 75:5750-5760

162.    Tuffin, IM, Anderson, D, Heath, C, Cowan, DA (2009) Metagenomic gene discovery: How far have we moved in sequence space? Biotechnol. J. 4:1671-1683.

163.    Cowan, DA (2009) Cryptic microbial communities in Antarctic deserts. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci, USA. 106:19749-19750

164.    Cowan, DA, Tuffin, IM (2009) Capturing global metabolism. Nature Biotechnol. 27:1132-1133

165.    Wong FK, Lau MC, Lacap DC, Aitchison JC, Cowan DA, Pointing SB (2009) Endolithic Microbial Colonization of Limestone in a High-altitude Arid Environment. Microb. Ecol. [Epub ahead of print]

166.    Cary, SC, McDonald, I, Barrett, JE and Cowan, DA. (2010) On the rocks: Microbial ecology of Antarctic cold desert soils.  Nature Rev. Microbiol.  8:129-138.

167.    Chiyanzu, I, Cowan, DA, Burton, SG (2010) Immobilization of Geobacillus pallidus RAPc8 nitrile hydratase (NHase) reduces substrate inhibition and enhances thermostability. Biotechnol. Bioeng. Accepted for Publication.

168.    Staniland, S., Coppock, M., Tuffin, M., van Zyl, L., Roychoudhury, A. N., Cowan, D. (2010) Cobalt uptake and resistance to trace metals in Comamonas testosteroni isolated from a heavy-metal contaminated site in the Zambian Copperbelt. Geomicrobiology Journal. Accepted for publication.

169.    Musingarimi, W., Tuffin, M., Cowan, D. (2010) Characterisation of the Arsenic Resistance Genes in Bacillus sp. UWC Isolated from Maturing Fly Ash-Acid Mine Drainage Neutralized Solids. South African Journal of Science. Accepted for publication.

170.    Bauer, R, Cowan, DA, Crouch, A. (2010) Acrolein in wine: Importance of 3-hydroxypropionaldehyde and derivatives in production and detection. Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry. Accepted for publication.

171.    Casanueva, A, Barnard, D, Tuffin, IM, Cowan DA. (2010) Extremophiles in biofuels production.  Environment. Technol.  In Press.

Abridged Curriculum Vitae