STAFF PROFILE
Dr Kylie Boyce
Position:
Lecturer, ECDF Biosciences
College / Portfolio:
School of Science Cluster
School / Department:
Biosciences and Food Technology
Phone:
99257101
Email:
kylie.boyce@rmit.edu.au
Campus:
Melbourne City Campus
Contact me about:
Research supervision
Research Interests
Dr Boyce's research focuses on how fungi recognize the host environment and transmit this information via signalling pathways to elucidate transcriptional changes and adaptation to the host. She is also interested in how the host environment triggers a morphological switch in some fungi from a multicellular growth form found in the external environmental (hyphae) to a pathogenic cell type (yeast) during infection. Recently, her research has focused on how fungal pathogens undergo microevolution in the host in order to adapt to the host environment and cause disease.
Examples of completed or currently active research projects:
- Investigating the role of DNA repair during microevolution of the pathogenic fungus Cryptococcus neoformans
- Characterizing the role of p21-activated kinase and two component signalling pathways in the dimorphic pathogen Talaromyces marneffei
- Identifying intracellular growth requirements in the human pathogen Penicillium marneffei
- Identifying genes required for virulence in the maize pathogen Ustilago maydis
- Morphogenetic circuitry regulating growth and development in Penicillium marneffei
Teaching and supervision
Dr Boyce supervises students undertaking research projects in medical mycology for undergraduate and postgraduate research projects.
Competitive research funding
- 2014-2015 Boyce KJ. Melbourne Research Fellowship, The University of Melbourne
Investigating fungal responses to the host environment
- 2014-2015 Boyce KJ. Melbourne Research Grant Support Scheme, The University of Melbourne
Investigating fungal responses to the host environment which circumvent host defense mechanisms - 2011-2013 Andrianopoulos A and Boyce KJ. NHMRC Project Grant.
Investigating the interface between host innate immune cells and a fungal pathogen - 2008-2010 Andrianopoulos A and Boyce KJ. NHMRC Project Grant.
The role of fatty acid metabolism in pathogenicity - 2006-2007 Boyce KJ. Early Career Researcher Grant, The University of Melbourne.
Identifying genes required for pathogenicity and spore development in fungi
- Head, Mycology group
- Postgraduate supervisor
- BSc (Hons) The University of Melbourne 1998
- PhD The University of Melbourne 2003
- Head Mycology Laboratory, 2017
- Senior Research Fellow, School of Biosciences, The University of Melbourne, Australia. 2015-2017
- Senior Research Fellow, Department of Genetics, The University of Melbourne, Australia. 2006-2015
- Research Fellow, Michael Smith Laboratories, The University of British Columbia, Canada. 2004-2006
- Research Fellow, Department of Genetics, The University of Melbourne, Australia. 2003-2004
- Boyce, K.,Cao, C.,Xue, C.,Idnurm, A. (2020). A spontaneous mutation in DNA polymerase POL3 during in vitro passaging causes a hypermutator phenotype in Cryptococcus species In: DNA Repair, 86, 1 - 12
- Della Gaspera, E.,Elbourne, A.,Cheeseman, S.,Wainer, P.,Kim, J.,Medvedev, A.,Boyce, K.,McConville, C.,van Embden, J.,Crawford, R.,Chapman, J.,Truong, V.,Della Gaspera, E. (2020). Significant Enhancement of Antimicrobial Activity in Oxygen-Deficient Zinc Oxide Nanowires In: ACS Applied Bio Materials, 3, 2997 - 3004
- Boyce, K.,Idnurm, A. (2019). Lighting Up Mutation: a New Unbiased System for the Measurement of Microbial Mutation Rates In: mBio, 10, 1 - 4
- Boyce, K.,Morrissey, O.,Idnurm, A.,Macreadie, I. (2019). Insights into the global emergence of antifungal drug resistance In: Microbiology Australia, 40, 87 - 91
- Boyce, K.,De Souza, D.,Dayalan, S.,Pasricha, S.,Tull, D.,McConville, M.,Andrianopoulos, A. (2018). Talaromyces marneffei simA encodes a fungal cytochrome P450 essential for survival in macrophages In: mSphere, 3, 1 - 18
- Ianiri, G.,Boyce, K.,Idnurm, A. (2017). Isolation of conditional mutations in genes essential for viability of Cryptococcus neoformans In: Current Genetics, 63, 519 - 530
- Boyce, K.,Wang, Y.,Verma, S.,Shakya, V.,Xue, C.,Idnurm, A. (2017). Mismatch repair of DNA replication errors contributes to microevolution in the pathogenic fungus Cryptococcus neoformans In: mBio, 8, 1 - 18
- Pasricha, S.,MacRae, J.,Chua, H.,Chambers, J.,Boyce, K.,McConville, M.,Andrianopoulos, A. (2017). Extensive metabolic remodeling differentiates non-pathogenic and pathogenic growth forms of the dimorphic pathogen Talaromyces marneffei In: Frontiers in Cellular and Infection Microbiology, 7, 1 - 12
- Boyce, K.,Cao, C.,Andrianopoulos, A. (2016). Two-component signaling regulates osmotic stress adaptation via SskA and the high-osmolarity glycerol MAPK pathway in the human pathogen talaromyces marneffei In: mSphere, 1, 1 - 17
- Pasricha, S.,Schafferer, L.,Lindner, H.,Boyce, K.,Haas, H.,Andrianopoulos, A. (2016). Differentially regulated high-affinity iron assimilation systems support growth of the various cell types in the dimorphic pathogen Talaromyces marneffei In: Molecular Microbiology, 102, 715 - 737
Mycology, Medical Mycology, Host-Pathogen Interactions, Pathogenesis, Morphology, Dimorphic Switching, Genetics, Epigenetics, Microevolution, Antibiotic resistance, Fungi in Biotechnology
1 PhD Current Supervisions and 1 Masters by Research Current Supervisions