Marine Sponge Biotechnology and Bioproducts

Prof. Wei Zhang, a Biochemical Engineer since 1989, is a globally recognized leader with research and teaching expertise in industry and marine biotechnology. He is a pioneer and the R&D leader in driving the establishment of the Australian third-generation marine bioproducts industry. He obtained his PhD from Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics, CAS in 1994, and did his Postdocs at the University of Tokyo, Adelaide University and Cambridge University. He joined Flinders University in 1998. Since 2000, he has secured many national and international grants over A$50 million, culminating in a $270m Marine Bioproduct Cooperative Research Centre (MBCRC) grant as Bid Lead. He founded the Centre for Marine Bioproducts Development and became its inaugural Director in 2009. He has published 300+ refereed Journal papers, eight Journal special issues, and two edited books. He is an editorial member of five Journals- Marine Biotechnology, Synthetic Biology and Engineering, Marine Life Science and Technology, Biofuels and Health Engineering; and Specialty-Chief Editor for Frontiers in Marine Science (Marine Biotechnology and Bioproducts). He is the Editor of Springer-Nature Book Series “Advances in Marine Bioprocesses and Bioproducts”. He has organised and chaired 30+ international conferences and sessions. He won several important awards, including the "South Australia Young Tall Poppy Science Award" in 2008, the "South Australia Science Excellence Award- Science and Industry Collaboration" in 2022, and the “Finalist of Australian Eureka Prizes for Leadership in Science and Innovation” in 2022. He is the Inaugural President of Australia-New Zealand Marine Biotechnology Society, and Chair of Marine Biotechnology Subcommittee, Australia National Marine Science Committee. He serves as the president of the Asia-Pacific Marine Biotechnology Society and is a board member of the International Marine Biotechnology Association and BioMarine. He has driven many national and international partnerships across governments, universities, industries, professional societies and communities. He has highly accomplished entrepreneurial skills to drive translational research toward industry outcomes and impacts. He was the founding Research Director and Chief Science Advisor of MBCRC, the Australian national research for industry flagship to drive innovation for the growing Australian third-generation high-value marine bioproducts industry.

He is an elected Fellow of the Australian Academy of Technological Science and Engineering (FTSE) and Matthew Flinders Distinguished Professor in Industry and Marine Biotechnology at Flinders University, Australia.

Dr David Newman, retired as Chief of the Natural Products Branch (NPB) in the Developmental Therapeutics Program at the National Cancer Institute in Frederick, Maryland in January 2015 having spent almost 24 years with the branch, the last 10 as Chief, and is an NIH Special Volunteer with the NPB.

He started his scientific career as a lab technician in 1956 working on metabolism of animal feeds and studying part time for the Associateship of the Royal Institute of Chemistry (by examination; equivalent to a BSc II/I degree in chemistry) which was awarded in 1960, After a year as an analytical chemist at Bibby & Sons (where he had been a technician) then followed an M.Sc. in synthetic organic chemistry of pyrroles from the University of Liverpool (1963), and after some years as an industrial synthetic organic chemist at Ilford Ltd working on photoactive dyestuffs, he joined the Unit of Nitrogen Fixation at the University of London, which subsequently moved to the Universityof Sussex and received a D. Phil. in microbial chemistry from the University of Sussex (1968). He moved to the USA as a post-doctoral fellow in the Biochemistry Department at the University of Georgia from 1968-1970.

In 1970 he joined SK&F as a biological chemist working mainly on anti-infective agents and in order to be able to program mainframe computers in 1977, he received an MLS in Information Science from Drexel University in Philadelphia. SK&F closed their antibiotic research program in 1985 and following work in marine and microbial discovery programs at various companies including the Head of Microbiology at SeaPharm and Lead Microbiologist at Lederle Laboratories, he joined the NCI/NPB in 1991 with responsibilities for marine and microbial collection programs and their development as antitumor agents.  Following Gordon Cragg’s retirement from the position of chief in Dec 2004, he was acting chief until appointed chief of the NPB in 2006.