Professor

Bob Symons

FAA FRS

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Dr. Symons' work has been on various aspects of nucleic acids, a field to which he has contributed in breadth and depth. His initial major contribution was in a chemical method for preparing p32-labelled nucleotide phosphates, work which made him a household name in nucleic acid laboratories all over the world. Following significant contributions to the field of peptidyl transferase in ribosomes, he has concentrated on plant viruses and viroids and has an international reputation in this area. He has been one of the leaders in introducing the techniques of molecular biology into this field and has made important contributions to our knowledge of the tripartite viruses. His work on viroids has led, among other things, to the discovery of a new viroid and an elegant rapid method for the detection of viroid diseases in plants based on hybridization of cDNA.

Expertise type

  • Virology
  • Viroids
  • Physiology
  • Biology

Please contact fellowship@science.org.au to request any updates to the data.

Related

Memoir

Robert Henry Symons 1934–2006

Bob Symons died in Adelaide on 4 October 2006 after a long illness. He was distinguished through his contributions to our knowledge of the structure, function and replication of plant viruses, viroids and virusoids. His research culminated in the discovery of the hammerhead folding of the RNA chain and its role as a ribozyme in self-cleavage of the RNA in some of these plant pathogens. He was a leader in his field and was responsible for commercial applications of his research and the establishment in Adelaide of the first Australian company to produce and market molecular biologicals for research.
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