Talking Plant Science: Frank Sainsbury

The ARC Centre of Excellence for Plant Success in Nature and Agriculture is proud to bring you the next seminar in our Talking Plant Science series, presented by Dr Frank Sainsbury.

Reprogramming Viruses to Protect Plants from the Inside and Out

Viruses are deceptively simple and remarkably potent. They infect all forms of cellular life and while viruses are known for disease, they exist as partners in different types of symbiotic relationships with their hosts, ranging from parasitic to mutualistic. Thanks to modern biotechnology they have also been harnessed for bespoke benefits in medicine and agriculture. My research group uses recombinant virus-like particle expression to understand the structure-function relationship of virus capsids and to rebuild viruses as containers for proteins and non-native nucleic acids. Using these approaches, we are exploiting some of the unique properties of viruses to devise ways to prevent the spread of plant pests and pathogens, including nematodes and disease-causing viruses. The environmental stability of bacteriophage capsids makes for long-lived carriers of RNA-based pesticides to soil. The ability of persistent plant viruses to exist relatively unchanged for millennia inside their hosts provides an opportunity to bestow crop resistance to herbivores and parasitic plant viruses via enduring extrachromosomal transcription in plants. Both projects support our goal to use reconstructed and reprogrammed virus-like particles as delivery vehicles in challenging environments where stability and/or transfer of sensitive cargos are current bottlenecks.

Dr Frank Sainsbury

Griffith University

Dr Frank Sainsbury leads a physical virology lab at Griffith University. His research group is primarily interested in virus capsids, pushing the boundaries of how they assemble, and what can be learned from using them as biochemical reaction vessels and delivery vehicles. Dr Sainsbury trained as a plant virologist at the John Innes Centre in the UK and was hooked by the deceptive simplicity of viruses and by their potential for use in biotechnology. His PhD work included the invention of protein expression systems in plants that have supported Phase III clinical trials of influenza vaccines and led to a major UK innovation award. Since taking up an ARC DECRA at the University of Queensland in 2014, he has developed a program of research into the assembly, engineering, and uses of virus-like particles. In 2018 he was awarded a CSIRO Fellowship in Synthetic Biology to explore the directed assembly of virus coat proteins into protein cages with non-natural geometries. He subsequently moved to Griffith University and in 2023, he was awarded an ARC Future Fellowship to evolve virus capsids for applied uses in agriculture and health.