Photo of Dr Peter Anderson Dr Peter Anderson

I completed a PhD at the University of New England, NSW in 2001. I researched how cobalt is accumulated by bacteria, which they use to make vitamin B12 cofactors. Vitamin B12 cofactors are only synthesised by bacteria, yet are an essential element of the human diet. Wishing to pursue B12 research, I moved to John Roth's genetics lab at the University of Utah in 2001 and shortly afterwards at the University of California (Davis). Here I discovered bacterial genetics: knockouts, phenotypes and complementation. An applied aspect of this work led to the development of a new test for human vitamin B12 absorption.

In October 2006 I moved to Monash University and worked on the red blood cell state of the malaria parasite; searching for potential vaccine candidates. In the research aspect of my role at CSU, I will be working on: drug discovery (tuberculosis), a vaccine candidate for Ross River virus and microbial metal chelates.

Memberships
  • American Society of Microbiology
  • Royal Society of New South Wales

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Teaching

Current subjects taught
  • MCR101 Introduction to Microbiology
  • DOH133 Dental Microbiology
  • BMS239 Clinical Measurement
  • BMS313 Pharmaceutical Microbiology
  • BMS500 Biomedical Research Methods

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Research

Research Interests:
  • Vitamin B12 synthesis, use and applications
  • Bacterial Genetics
  • Microbial Metal Chelates
  • Drug Discovery
A new test for Human Vitamin B12 absorption/malabsorption

Vitamins are essential molecules that we cannot make ourselves; they are usually acquired in our diet. Without any one of them, we will eventually die. Vitamin B12 cofactors are only synthesised by bacteria, so the question arises where does our dietary Vitamin B12 come from since we don't eat bacteria. The answer is that bacterial vitamin B12 moves up or across the food chain into our diet, for instance meat that comes from ruminant animals (goat, sheep, cattle etc) is a particularly rich source of Vitamin B12.

However meat is not the only way that one can get vitamin B12. It is present in many other foods. One interesting recent discovery was the proof that some algae (eg: Nori) have a symbiotic relationship with B12-producing bacteria, which explains why these algae contain B12, but don't make it themselves.

Research that I was involved with at the University of California was to develop a new test for human vitamin B12 absorption/malabsorption. B12 has a complicated absorption pathway and it is difficult to detect the tiny increase in blood-B12 that would indicate the pathway is working normally. To detect the arrival of newly absorbed B12 into the human bloodstream, we synthesized a special form of vitamin B12 containing a single carbon-14 atom as shown in Figure 1 below. The carbon-14 atom allowed B12 to be detected in human plasma by incredibly sensitive carbon dating methods (Figure 2). The complete work was published in PNAS in 2006. We hope that the extension of this research will lead to a better vitamin B12 malabsorption test than the current Schilling test.

Figure 1

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Publications

Selected Publications:
Patents
Commentary:

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