The Graduate School of Biosphere Science hosted the visit of Professor Alastair McEwan of The University of Queensland on February 12, 2019.  Graduate School Dean Yoshihiro Sambongi and Vice Dean for International Affairs Kazuhiko Koike received the Aussie scientist for a fruitful discussion on faculty and student exchanges and joint research as The University of Queensland is one of the MOU universities of the Graduate School of Biosphere Science.

Later in the day, Professor McEwan gave a well-attended seminar on the effects of copper delivered through Cu-ionophores on bacterial growth physiology and the potential to use its toxicity as antimicrobial agents.  Earlier in the week, Professor McEwan gave a plenary talk at the 2019 Hiraku International Symposium held at the Satake Memorial Hall where he spoke about the topic on PhDs and postdocs in Australia – developing the next generation of graduate researchers.

Professor McEwan holds a BSc (Honours) in Biochemistry from the University of Leeds and a PhD in Biochemistry awarded by the University of Birmingham.  He then held a Science and Engineering Research Council NATO Postdoctoral Fellowship at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (USA) and a Royal Society University Research Fellowship at the University of Oxford (UK) and then moved on to teach at the University of East Anglia.  In 1993 he joined the University of Queensland and was promoted to Professor in 2003, eventually becoming the Head of the School of Chemistry and Molecular Biosciences from 2005-2010.  He was appointed Dean of the University of Queensland Graduate School in 2013, and is currently Pro-Vice Chancellor (Research Training) mainly responsible for researcher development, including the development of early career researchers.  He was one of the promoters of the now famous 3MT® or the Three Minute Competition at the University of Queensland wherein students explain their research within three minutes using a language understandable by a non-technical audience.  Hiroshima University is one of the more than 600 universities in 65 countries worldwide to have organized annual 3MT® events.  Professor McEwan’s research interests include bacterial physiology and pathogenesis, redox biology and the role of transition metal ions in host-pathogen interactions.