Nicanor Austriaco

Last updated
Nicanor Austriaco
OP
Rev. Nicanor Austriaco, OP.jpg
Born
Nicanor Robles Austriaco, Jr.

(1968-11-01) November 1, 1968 (age 56)
Philippines
NationalityFilipino-American
Alma mater
Known forBiomedical ethics, theology, and the biology of aging
Scientific career
Fields Molecular biology
Institutions
Thesis UTH1 and the Genetic Control of Aging in the Yeast, Saccharomyces  (1996)
Doctoral advisor Leonard P. Guarente

Nicanor Robles Austriaco, Jr. OP is a Filipino-American molecular biologist and Catholic priest. He is a professor of biology and professor of theology at Providence College, in Providence, Rhode Island, [1] and a research fellow at the Center for Theology, Religious Studies, and Ethics, at the University of Santo Tomas in the Philippines.

Contents

Early life and education

Austriaco attended the University of Pennsylvania where he earned a Bachelor of Science Engineering (B.S.E.), summa cum laude, in 1989. He went on to earn a PhD in biology from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 1996, where he was a Howard Hughes Medical Institute pre-doctoral fellow in the laboratory of Professor Leonard Guarente. His doctoral research involved the characterization of the first aging genes in the budding yeast, Saccharomyces cerevisiae .

In 1997, after a brief fellowship at the Ludwig Institute of Cancer Research at the University College London, he entered the Order of Friars Preachers. He attended the Pontifical Faculty of the Immaculate Conception at the Dominican House of Studies in Washington, D.C., where he earned his Master of Divinity degree and Licentiate in Sacred Theology. He completed his Doctorate in Sacred Theology at the University of Fribourg in 2015. Austriaco earned an M.B.A. degree from Providence College in 2020.

Career

Since 2005, Austriaco has served on the faculty of Providence College. In the same year, he became an investigator at the Rhode Island Idea Network of Biomedical Research Excellence (RI-INBRE) Program. He is also the founding director of ThomisticEvolution.org, which seeks to promote a Catholic approach to understanding evolution in the light of faith. [2] He is co-author of a book on Thomistic evolution. [3]

In 2011, Austriaco published a book titled Biomedicine and Beatitude: an Introduction to Catholic Bioethics. [4] The book responds to questions raised in scientific and medical ethics from the perspective of the Catholic moral tradition that is grounded in a natural law and virtue ethic.

He has also spoken on numerous questions at the interface between science and religion. Most recently, he has proposed that the historicity of Adam and Eve can still be reconciled with the very best genomic science. [5]

Austriaco is currently a visiting professor of Biological Sciences at the University of Santo Tomas in the Philippines. As a fellow of the OCTA Research Team, he has been interviewed by Filipino TV channels on different aspects of COVID-19. [6]

Research

In addition to his other work and publications, Austriaco is the founder and principal investigator of the Austriaco Lab. The laboratory is located at Providence College and is primarily an undergraduate research laboratory that investigates cell death using the budding yeast, Saccharomyces cerevisiae , as a model organism. [7] Because of the pandemic, the lab has pivoted to developing a yeast based delivery platform for a COVID-19 vaccine that can be easily deployed in developing countries. [8]

Related Research Articles

<i>Saccharomyces cerevisiae</i> Species of yeast

Saccharomyces cerevisiae is a species of yeast. The species has been instrumental in winemaking, baking, and brewing since ancient times. It is believed to have been originally isolated from the skin of grapes. It is one of the most intensively studied eukaryotic model organisms in molecular and cell biology, much like Escherichia coli as the model bacterium. It is the microorganism which causes many common types of fermentation. S. cerevisiae cells are round to ovoid, 5–10 μm in diameter. It reproduces by budding.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Franklin Stahl</span> American molecular biologist and geneticist

Franklin (Frank) William Stahl is an American molecular biologist and geneticist. With Matthew Meselson, Stahl conducted the famous Meselson-Stahl experiment showing that DNA is replicated by a semiconservative mechanism, meaning that each strand of the DNA serves as a template for production of a new strand.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mating of yeast</span> Biological process of yeast

The mating of yeast, also known as yeast sexual reproduction, is a biological process that promotes genetic diversity and adaptation in yeast species. Yeast species, such as Saccharomyces cerevisiae, are single-celled eukaryotes that can exist as either haploid cells, which contain a single set of chromosomes, or diploid cells, which contain two sets of chromosomes. Haploid yeast cells come in two mating types, a and α, each producing specific pheromones to identify and interact with the opposite type, thus displaying simple sexual differentiation. A yeast cell's mating type is determined by a specific genetic locus known as MAT, which governs its mating behaviour. Haploid yeast can switch mating types through a form of genetic recombination, allowing them to change mating type as often as every cell cycle. When two haploid cells of opposite mating types encounter each other, they undergo a complex signaling process that leads to cell fusion and the formation of a diploid cell. Diploid cells can reproduce asexually, but under nutrient-limiting conditions, they undergo meiosis to produce new haploid spores.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kim Nasmyth</span> British biochemist

Kim Ashley Nasmyth is an English geneticist, the Whitley Professor of Biochemistry at the University of Oxford, a Fellow of Trinity College, Oxford, former scientific director of the Research Institute of Molecular Pathology (IMP), and former head of the Department of Biochemistry, University of Oxford. He is best known for his work on the segregation of chromosomes during cell division.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Saccharomycotina</span> Subdivision of fungi

Saccharomycotina is a subdivision (subphylum) of the division (phylum) Ascomycota in the kingdom Fungi. It comprises most of the ascomycete yeasts. The members of Saccharomycotina reproduce by budding and they do not produce ascocarps.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dominican House of Studies</span>

The Dominican House of Studies is a Catholic institution in Washington, DC, housing both the Priory of the Immaculate Conception, a community of the Province of St. Joseph of the Order of Preachers (Dominicans), and the Pontifical Faculty of the Immaculate Conception, an ecclesiastical faculty of theology.

Saccharomyces pastorianus is a yeast used industrially for the production of lager beer, and was named in honour of Louis Pasteur by the German Max Reess in 1870. This yeast's complicated genome appears to be the result of hybridisation between two pure species in the Saccharomyces species complex, a factor that led to difficulty in establishing a proper taxonomy of the species.

<i>Eremothecium gossypii</i> Species of fungus

Eremothecium gossypii (also known as Ashbya gossypii) is a filamentous fungus or mold closely related to yeast, but growing exclusively in a filamentous way. It was originally isolated from cotton as a pathogen causing stigmatomycosis by Ashby and Nowell in 1926. This disease affects the development of hair cells in cotton bolls and can be transmitted to citrus fruits, which thereupon dry out and collapse (dry rot disease). In the first part of the 20th century, E. gossypii and two other fungi causing stigmatomycosis (Eremothecium coryli, Aureobasidium pullulans) made it virtually impossible to grow cotton in certain regions of the subtropics, causing severe economical losses. Control of the spore-transmitting insects - cotton stainer (Dysdercus suturellus) and Antestiopsis (antestia bugs) - permitted full eradication of infections. E. gossypii was recognized as a natural overproducer of riboflavin (vitamin B2), which protects its spores against ultraviolet light. This made it an interesting organism for industries, where genetically modified strains are still used to produce this vitamin.

Brian K. Kennedy is a scientist, performing research on the science of aging and healthy longevity. Since 2017, he has served as a Distinguished Professor in Biochemistry and Physiology at the Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine in the National University of Singapore, where he is currently the Director of the Healthy Longevity Translational Research Programme and the Asian Centre for Reproductive Longevity and Equality. His efforts have been directed at building world-class longevity research in Singapore.

John C. Vidmar, O.P. is an associate professor of history at Providence College, Rhode Island where he also serves as provincial archivist and teaches history. Prior to his work at Providence, he served as associate professor, academic dean, acting president and prior teaching history for 15 years at the Dominican House of Studies in Washington D.C.

G1/S-specific cyclin Cln3 is a protein that is encoded by the CLN3 gene. The Cln3 protein is a budding yeast G1 cyclin that controls the timing of Start, the point of commitment to a mitotic cell cycle. It is an upstream regulator of the other G1 cyclins, and it is thought to be the key regulator linking cell growth to cell cycle progression. It is a 65 kD, unstable protein; like other cyclins, it functions by binding and activating cyclin-dependent kinase (CDK).

Saccharomyces eubayanus, a cryotolerant type of yeast, is most likely the parent of the lager brewing yeast, Saccharomyces pastorianus.

Saccharomyces kudriavzevii, is a species of yeast in the Saccharomyces sensu stricto complex. Its type strain is NCYC 2889T. It is used in production of alcoholic beverages, including pinot noir wine, and hybrids of it are used in beer brewing. It is isolated widely from the bark of oak trees.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fred Winston</span> American geneticist

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Aerobic fermentation or aerobic glycolysis is a metabolic process by which cells metabolize sugars via fermentation in the presence of oxygen and occurs through the repression of normal respiratory metabolism. Preference of aerobic fermentation over aerobic respiration is referred to as the Crabtree effect in yeast, and is part of the Warburg effect in tumor cells. While aerobic fermentation does not produce adenosine triphosphate (ATP) in high yield, it allows proliferating cells to convert nutrients such as glucose and glutamine more efficiently into biomass by avoiding unnecessary catabolic oxidation of such nutrients into carbon dioxide, preserving carbon-carbon bonds and promoting anabolism.

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Lorraine S. Symington is a British-American geneticist. As the Harold S. Ginsberg Professor and Director of Graduate Studies of Microbiology & Immunology at Columbia University, her laboratory uses genetic, biochemical and molecular approaches to understand mechanisms of homology-directed double-strand break repair using the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae as an experimental system.

References

  1. "Nicanor Austriaco O.P." The Department of Biology at Providence College. Retrieved 2021-01-05.
  2. "Home". Thomistic Evolution. Retrieved 2021-01-05.
  3. "Thomistic Evolution". ClunyMedia. Retrieved 2021-01-05.
  4. Austriaco, Nicanor Pier Giorgio (5 December 2011). Biomedicine and Beatitude: An Introduction to Catholic Bioethics. ISBN   978-0813218823.
  5. "Fr. Nicanor Austriaco, O.P. - Defending Adam After Darwin (FranU Bioethics Lecture Series) - YouTube". www.youtube.com. Retrieved 2021-01-05.
  6. "OCTA: COVID-19 cases sa NCR patuloy ang pagtaas". cnn. Retrieved 2021-01-05.[ dead link ]
  7. Lin, Su-Ju; Austriaco, Nicanor (2014-02-01). "Aging and cell death in the other yeasts, Schizosaccharomyces pombe and Candida albicans". FEMS Yeast Research. 14 (1): 119–135. doi: 10.1111/1567-1364.12113 . ISSN   1567-1356. PMC   4000287 . PMID   24205865.
  8. Editor, Online. "'Like Yakult': UST researcher eyes yeast to deliver oral Covid-19 vaccine" . Retrieved 2021-01-05.{{cite web}}: |last= has generic name (help)