Profile
Dr Ipek Kurtböke has been working in the field of Biodiscovery since 1982 and has been associated with the international actinomycete research community for over 38 years.
Her most significant contribution to the field has been the development of a novel isolation technique that selectively cultures rare actinomycetes with industrial importance.
- Kurtböke, D.İ. (2017) (Ed.). Microbial resources: from functional existence in nature to applications. Elsevier, Academic Press (ISBN: 9780128047651).
- Kurtböke, D.İ. (Ed.) (2012). Bacteriophages. InTech (ISBN: 978-953-51-0272-4).
- Kurtböke, D.İ. and Swings, J. (Eds.) (2004). Microbial Genetic Resources and Biodiscovery. Queensland Complete Printing Services, Australia (ISBN: 0646-44048-9).
- Kurtböke, D.İ. (Ed.) (2003). Selective Isolation of Rare Actinomycetes. Queensland Complete Printing Services, Australia (ISBN 0-646-42910-8).
Dr Kurtböke received CNR (1984, Italy), NATO-Double Jump (1986), British Council (1988-89) fellowships in Europe and was Honorary Research Fellow of the Antarctic CRC at the University of Tasmania (1999-2002).
Her expertise in the microbial culture collections and their sustainable use for biotechnology links her to the World Federation for Culture Collections and is currently serving as the President of the Federation (2017-2020).
Since joining the University of the Sunshine Coast in 2001, she has developed undergraduate and postgraduate teaching programs in the field of applied microbiology and biotechnology, as well as conducting research in environmental, biomedical, agricultural and food microbiology. She has also created a Microbial Library as a resource for teaching and research purposes. The Library contains diverse and bioactive actinomycetes and bacteriophages.
- Kurtböke, D.I. (2004). Actino-Rush on the Sunshine Coast: Prospects for Bioprospecting. In the Proceedings of the 10th International Congress on Culture Collections, Tsukuba, Japan, 2004 (Watanabe, M.M., Suzuki, K. and Seki, T., Eds), 319-322.
- Kurtböke D.I. (2004). Uniqueness of the Smart State’s microbial diversity: From an actinomycete collection to biodiscovery at the University of the Sunshine Coast. Microbiology Australia, 25 (2): 36-38.
Dr Kurtböke is currently part of the Expert Roundtable on acceptance and re-implementation of bacteriophage therapy.
- Expert roundtable on acceptance and re-implementation of bacteriophage therapy; Sybesma, W.; Rohde, C.; Bardy, P.; Pirnay, J.-P.; Cooper, I.; Caplin, J.; Chanishvili, N.; Coffey, A.; De Vos, D.; Scholz, A.H.; McCallin, S.; Püschner, H.M.; Pantucek, R.; Aminov, R.; Doškař, J. and Kurtbӧke, D.İ. (2018). Silk Route to the Acceptance and Re-Implementation of Bacteriophage Therapy—Part II. Antibiotics, 7, 35, http://www.mdpi.com/2079-6382/7/2/35
She also takes part in the WDCM-Global Catalogue of microorganisms 10K type strain sequencing project.
- Linhuan Wu, Kevin McCluskey, Philippe Desmeth, Shuangjiang Liu, Sugawara Hideaki, Ye Yin, Ohkuma Moriya, Takashi Itoh, Cha Young Kim, Jung-Sook Lee, Yuguang Zhou, Hiroko Kawasaki, Manzour Hernando Hazbón, Vincent Robert, Teun Boekhout, Nelson Lima, Lyudmila Evtushenko, Kyria Boundy-Mills, Boyke Bunk, Edward R B Moore, Lily Eurwilaichitr, Supawadee Ingsriswang, Heena Shah, Su Yao, Tao Jin, Jinqun Huang, Wenyu Shi, Qinglan Sun, Guomei Fan, Wei Li, Xian Li, İpek Kurtböke and Juncai Ma (2018). The global catalogue of microorganisms 10K type strain sequencing project: closing the genomic gaps for the validly published prokaryotic and fungi species. GigaScience, 7(5), GIY026, https://doi.org/10.1093/gigascience/giy026, OXFORD Academic Press.
Dr Kurtböke is also a member of the ICTV Bacterial and Archaeal Viruses Subcommittee, Caudovirales Study Group.
- Adriaenssens, E.M., Sullivan, M.B., Knezevic, P., van Zyl, L.J., Sarkar, B.L., Dutilh, B.E., Alfenas‑Zerbini, P., Łobocka, M., Tong, Y., Brister, J.R., Moreno Switt, A.I., Klumpp, J., Aziz, R.K., Barylski, J., Uchiyama, J., Edwards, R.A., Kropinski, A.M., Petty, N.K., Clokie, M.R.J., Kushkina, A.I., Morozova, V.V., Dufy, S., Gillis, A., Rumnieks, J., Kurtböke, I., Chanishvili, N., Goodridge, L., Wittmann, J., Lavigne, R., Jang, H.B., Prangishvili, D., Enault, F., Turner, D., Poranen, M.M., Oksanen, H.M., Krupovic, M. (2020). Taxonomy of prokaryotic viruses: 2018-2019 update from the ICTV Bacterial and Archaeal Viruses Subcommittee. Archives of Virology, pp.1-8.
Professional memberships
- Australian Microbial Resources Research Network (AMRRN) (Founding member)
- Turkish Society for Microbiology
- Australasian Plant Pathology Society
- Society for Industrial Microbiology and Biotechnology (USA)
- Australian Society of Microbiology
- The Society for Actinomycetes Japan
- Society for General Microbiology (UK)
Research areas
- Microbial ecology, diversity and systematics
- Applied and environmental microbiology and biotechnology and bioremediation
- Bacteriophages and bacteriophage therapy
- Industrial microbiology and biodiscovery
- Waste management and bioconversion of waste into environmentally friendly bio-fertilizers
- Biological control of plant pathogens
- Marine and aquatic microbiology
Teaching areas
- Microbiology
- Applied Microbiology and Biotechnology
- Pharmaceutical and Food Microbiology
Selected publications and editorial duties
- Dr Ipek Kurtböke is Chair of the Editorial Board of Microbiology Australia http://microbiology.publish.csiro.au/, official journal of the Australian Society for Microbiology.
- She is also an Editorial Board Member of the: Marine Drugs (Associate-Editor) https://www.mdpi.com/journal/marinedrugs and Diversity https://www.mdpi.com/journal/diversity, (Section Editor), https://www.mdpi.com/journal/diversity/sectioneditors/microbial_diversity
- Kurtböke D.I. (Guest Ed.) (2018). Diversity of Marine Invertebrate and Seaweed Symbiotic Bacteria. Special issue for Diversity (ISSN 1424-2818). http://www.mdpi.com/journal/diversity/special_issues/marine_invertebrate
- Kurtböke D.I. (Guest Ed.) (2018). Marine Natural products from Symbiotic Ecosystems. Special issue for Marine Drugs (ISSN 1660 3397). http://www.mdpi.com/journal/marinedrugs/special_issues/Symbiotic_Ecosystems
- She is also an Associate Editor for Frontiers Marine Biotechnology https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/all/sections/marine-biotechnology and the Review Editor for Frontiers in Microbiology: Antimicrobials, Resistance and Chemotherapy https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/microbiology/sections/antimicrobials-resistance-and-chemotherapy and guest co-editor of the following issue of the Frontiers: Marine Biotechnology
- Kurtböke D.I. and Zotchev, S. (Guest co-Eds.) (2018). Marine Biotechnology for Sustainable Futures. Special Issue for Frontiers: Marine Biotechnology, https://www.frontiersin.org/research-topics/6791/marine-microbial-biotechnology-for-sustainable-futures
Several recent highlighted publications are provided below
- Le, T.S., Southgate, P.C., O’Connor, W., Abramov, T., Shelley, D., V Vu, S. and Kurtböke, D.İ. (2020). Use of bacteriophages to control Vibrio contamination of microalgae used as a food source for oyster larvae during hatchery culture. Current Microbiology, 77, 1811–1820.
- Le, T.S., Southgate, P.C., O’Connor, W., Vu, S.V. and Kurtböke, D.İ. (2020). Application of bacteriophages to control Vibrio alginolyticus contamination in oyster (Saccostrea glomerata) larvae. Antibiotics, 9(7), 415, doi:10.3390/antibiotics9070415.
- Buedenbender, L., Carroll, A.R. and Kurtböke, D.İ. (2019). Detecting co-cultivation induced chemical diversity via 2D NMR fingerprints. Microbiology Australia, 40(4): 186-189.
- Wilson, A., Fox, E., Fegan, N. and Kurtböke, D.Í., (2019). Comparative genomics and phenotypic investigations into antibiotic, heavy metal and disinfectant susceptibilities of Salmonella enterica strains isolated in Australia. Frontiers in Microbiology, 10, p.1620.
- Gordon, S.E., Wingfield, M., Kurtböke, D.I. and Southgate, P.C. (2019). Effects of nucleus position, profile and arrangement on the quality of mabé pearls produced by the winged pearl oyster, Pteria penguin. Aquaculture, 498, 109-115.
- Buedenbender, L., Habener, L. J., Grkovic, T., Kurtböke, D.İ., Duffy, S., Avery, V.M., and Carroll, A.R. (2018). HSQC–TOCSY Fingerprinting for prioritization of polyketide-and peptide-producing microbial isolates. Journal of Natural Products, 81(4), 957-965.
- Buedenbender, L.; Robertson, L.P.; Lucantoni, L.; Avery, V.M.; Kurtböke, D.İ. and Carroll, A.R. (2018). HSQC-TOCSY fingerprinting-directed discovery of antiplasmodial polyketides from the marine ascidian-derived Streptomyces (USC-16018). Marine Drugs, 16, 189.
- Le, T.S.; Nguyen, T.H.; Vo, H.P.; Doan, V.C.; Nguyen, H.L.; Tran, M.T.; Tran, T.T.; Southgate, P.C. and Kurtböke, D.İ. (2018). Protective effects of bacteriophages against Aeromonas hydrophila causing motile Aeromonas Septicemia (MAS) in striped catfish. Antibiotics, 7,
- Le, T.S., Southgate, P.C., O’Connor, W., Poole, S. and Kurtböke, D.İ. (2017). Bacteriophages as biological control agents of enteric bacteria contaminating edible oysters. Current Microbiology, https://doi.org/10.1007/s00284-017-1424-6.
- Buedenbender, L., Carroll, A. R., Ekins, M. and Kurtböke, D İ. (2017). Taxonomic and metabolite diversity of actinomycetes associated with three Australian ascidians. Diversity, 9(4), 53, doi:3390/d9040053.
- Brinkmann, C. M., Kearns, P. S., Evans-Illidge, E. and Kurtbӧke, D. İ. (2017). Diversity and bioactivity of marine bacteria associated with the sponges Candidaspongia flabellata and Rhopaloeides odorabile from the Great Barrier Reef in Australia. Diversity, 9(3), 39.
- Brinkmann, C. M., Marker, A. and Kurtböke, D.İ. (2017). An Overview on Marine Sponge-Symbiotic Bacteria as Unexhausted Sources for Natural Product Discovery. Diversity, 9(4), 40.
- Jonns, J.A., Brooks, P.R., Exley, P., Poole, S. and Kurtböke, D.İ. (2017). Streptophage-mediated control of off-flavour taint producing streptomycetes isolated from barramundi ponds. Synthetic and Systems Biotechnology, 2(2), 105-112.
- English, A.L. Boufridi, A. Quinn, R.J. and Kurtböke, D.I. (2017). Evaluation of fermentation conditions triggering increased antibacterial activity from a nearshore marine intertidal environment-associated Streptomyces Synthetic and Systems Biotechnology, 2(1), 28-38.
Dr Ipek Kurtboke's specialist areas of knowledge include food microbiology and fermentation microbiology, biotechnology, marine microbiology