Benjamin Nestor

I am a PhD student in the Applied Bioinformatics group and Finnegan lab at the University of Western Australia. In my PhD, I have mainly been working on and analysing a transcriptome and genome assembly for a native Australian plant, Harsh hakea (Hakea prostrata). My research group is keenly interested in this species because of its high efficiency in taking up and using phosphorus from the soil.

Before starting my PhD, I completed a Bachelor’s degree in Botany and Conservation Biology followed by an Honours degree in Plant Biology at the University of Western Australia. Most of this work was lab-based, but during my Honours I began transitioning to bioinformatics and I am now continuing this work as part of my PhD.

Areas of Interest

Plant biology, Australian native plants, genome assembly, transcriptome assembly, annotation, gene family identification, phylogenetic trees, gene expression, 3D protein modelling.

Publications

Current record of publication is available at https://scholar.google.com.au/citations?user=saP73_MAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao

Academic History

2020 to present PhD in Biological Sciences at the University of Western Australia. Supervised by Assoc. Prof. Patrick Finnegan, Prof. David Edwards, Dr. Philipp Bayer, and Emer. Prof. Hans Lambers. Project title: “Genomic resources for studying high nutrient-use-efficiency traits in Australian plants”.

2019 – 2019 Honours in Plant Biology at the University of Western Australia. Supervised by Assoc. Prof. Patrick Finnegan, Dr. Philipp Bayer, and Dr. Kosala Ranathunge. Project title: “Low diversity of high-affinity NITRATE TRANSPORTER 2 (NRT2) genes likely underlies nitrate-influx restraint in the high phosphorus-use-efficient Hakea prostrata (Proteaceae)”.

2016 – 2018 Bachelor of Science, majoring in Botany and Conservation Biology at the University of Western Australia.

Contact

benjamin.nestor@research.uwa.edu.au