I completed Honors and PhD at The Flinders University of South Australia in Adelaide, under the supervision of Dr.Kathleen Soole and Dr Ian Dry (CSIRO). We published the first evidence of lipid-anchored plasma membrane proteins, called GPI-anchored proteins, on the surface of plant cells. I then worked for 2 years in the Biotechnology industry for the Adelaide based company GroPep on production of recombinant peptide growth factors. I returned to plant research at CSIRO Plant Industry at the Waite Campus in Adelaide in the flavonoid research group of Dr Simon Robinson. During this postodc I identified a MYB transcription factor that regulates the synthesis of anthocyanin in red apples and found a mutation of this gene underlies most green apple varieties. For my second postdoc I joined Prof. Cathie Martin at the University of Copenhagen to study the genetics of cyanogenic glucoside metabolism. Hosted in the Biochemistry Department of Prof. Birger Lindberg Møller, we developed a genetic screen for mutants in cyanogenesis in the model legume Lotus japonicus. In a group with Dr. Fred Rook and former Ph.D. students Daniela Lai and Camilla Knudsen (both now post doctoral fellows), we have discovered that all the cyanogenic glucoside pathway genes are clustered in the genomes of three different plant species. The genomic clustering of genes could be more widespread in plant secondary metabolism, perhaps enabling the rapid elucidation of medicinal pathways, and we are exploring this possibility. Recently I have begun to look at cyanogenic glucoside biosynthesis in the oldest plants known to contain them, the ferns. My current PhD student Sara Thodberg has identified several Danish fern species which contain cyanogenic glucosides and we know intend to clone the genes for their biosynthesis. The pathway appears to have evolved independently at least three times in more modern plants and the evolutionary relationship of the pathway in ferns will be interesting.