L-R: Jingli, Gojko, Xiao, Matthias, Karrera, Chak, Tony, Lee Xin, Luke, Zhenyu, Ryan
Welcome to the Wedd Research Group website. We are from the School of Chemistry at the University of Melbourne and are located in the new Bio21 Molecular Science and Biotechnology Institute. We are interested in the roles of various transition metals, including Cu, Zn, Ni, W, and Fe, in catalysis and biology. We use a multi-disciplinary approach spanning synthetic inorganic chemistry, physical chemistry, protein biochemistry and microbiology. Please use the navigation menu above to find out more about us.
We welcome inquiries from prospective Honours and PhD students and post-doctoral fellows. Please click here for more information about opportunities within the group.
Recent Group News
May 2009
Congratulation to Ryan Gilbret-Wilson who received the Deans Award for the top honours student in Chemistry in 2008.
Karrera Djoko Phd Thesis has been accepted. The Examiners recommended that she be nominated for the Chancellors Prize for Excellence.
Matthias Zimmermann has presented his phd defence seminar entitled "Copper and Zinc: How Nature Sort Them Out".
Jens Brose (University of Bielefeld, Germany) and Sonja Schimo (Johann Wolfgang Goethe University, Frankfurt, Germany) has joined us for research work associated with their Diploma Degrees.
December 2008
Congratulations to Matthias Zimmermann, who received a Stranks Oral Presentation Award at the 9th RACI Inorganic Chemistry Conference in Christchurch, New Zealand.
Karrera Djoko has submitted her PhD thesis. She will be starting her post-doctoral research project with Prof. Alastair McEwan at the University of Queensland in the new year. We wish her all the best.
November 2008
Ryan Gilbert-Wilson and Luke Morran have completed their Honours degrees. We congratulate them and wish them all the very best in their future endeavours.
Congratulations to Karrera Djoko, who received a Young Scientist Oral Presentation Award at the 4th Asian Biological Inorganic Chemistry in Jeju Island, South Korea.
September 2008
Emma Stevens has joined us as a Chemistry 399 research student. She will be working with Lee Xin Chong to study several CopK mutants from C. metallidurans.
August 2008
We welcome Jiaxi Song, who has joined us for 4 weeks as a winter vacation research experience student. She will be working with Lee Xin Chong to study the copper binding protein CopK from C. metallidurans.
July 2008
Sinth Jegaskanda has joined us for 3 weeks as a winter vacation research experience student. He will be working with Karrera Djoko to express multicopper oxidases from E. coli.
May 2008
Zhenyu Shi has joined us as a PhD student. He will be working initially on the multicopper oxidases from E. coli and move on to investigate copper pumps from the same bacterium.
Apr 2008
We welcome back Lee Xin Chong, who has recently returned as a PhD student. She will be continuing her Honours work on CopK protein from C. metallidurans. She will also investigate copper pumps from E. coli.
Feb 2008
Ryan Gilbert-Wilson and Luke Moran have recently joined us as Honours students in chemistry. Ryan is making polyoxometalate complexes with Dr. Jingli Xie. Luke is co-supervised by Dr. Paul Donnelly and is working copper-specific sensors.
