Rate My Professor Josh Mylne

Professor Josh Mylne is a distinguished plant molecular biologist and biochemist, currently serving as a Visiting Professor in the School of Molecular and Life Sciences within the Faculty of Science and Engineering at Curtin University. He earned his PhD in Botany from the University of Queensland in 2002. His postdoctoral research at the John Innes Centre in the UK from 2001 to 2005 focused on epigenetics, molecular genetics, and vernalization. From 2006 to 2012, he held fellowships at the University of Queensland's Institute for Molecular Bioscience, working on peptide biosynthesis with molecular biology, NMR, and mass spectrometry. Mylne established his laboratory at the University of Western Australia's School of Molecular Sciences in 2013, serving until 2021 and being promoted to Associate Professor in 2018. In mid-2021, he moved to Curtin University as Professor and Deputy Director of the Centre for Crop and Disease Management, positions he held until retiring from full-time science in January 2024.

Mylne's research centers on plant genetics, biochemistry, and chemical biology, particularly the biosynthesis and evolution of cyclic peptides, structural enzymology, and discovering new herbicides targeting plant-specific enzymes amid rising resistance. Notable publications include 'Structural basis of ribosomal peptide macrocyclization in plants' (eLife, 2018), 'A fungal tolerance trait and selective inhibitors proffer HMG-CoA reductase as a herbicide mode-of-action' (Nature Communications, 2022), 'Herbicidal properties of antimalarial drugs' (Scientific Reports, 2017), and 'Albumins and their processing machinery are hijacked for cyclic peptides in sunflower' (Nature Chemical Biology, 2011). With over 80 publications in leading journals such as Nature, Plant Cell, and Angewandte Chemie, his work advances agricultural biotechnology. He has received the Peter Goldacre Medal (2012), Fulbright Professional Scholarship (2017), UWA Vice-Chancellor's Mid-Career Research Award, and multiple Australian Research Council grants including Future and Discovery Projects. Mylne supervised or co-supervised 49 postgraduate students, with nine PhDs completing successfully.