Rate My Professor Nathan Tivendale

Dr. Nathan Tivendale is a plant biochemist serving as Honorary Research Fellow in the School of Molecular Sciences and the ARC Centre of Excellence in Plant Energy Biology at The University of Western Australia. With extensive experience in both academic and industrial settings, he possesses in-depth knowledge across plant physiology, molecular biology, bioanalytical chemistry, and organic chemistry. Tivendale earned his Doctor of Philosophy in Plant Biochemistry, titled 'The Biosynthesis of Two Naturally-Occurring Auxins in Pisum Sativum L.,' awarded on 19 December 2012. He also holds a Bachelor of Biotechnology with Honours in Biotechnology, investigating auxin biosynthesis in the garden pea, awarded 18 December 2009, and a Bachelor of Biotechnology, awarded 18 December 2007, both from the University of Tasmania.

Tivendale's research specializations include plant biochemistry, plant hormone biology with a focus on auxins, plant proteomics, metabolism, cell and molecular biology, secondary metabolism, and natural products for drug discovery. His academic interests center on energy use and efficiency in plants, particularly protein synthesis and degradation. Current projects encompass protein turnover and energy investment in cereal crops, linking protein age with function, and evolving enzymes to extend their working life and improve plant performance. He returned to academia in 2019 as a Research Fellow in the Millar lab group at The University of Western Australia. Tivendale's contributions have garnered over 300 citations, influencing understandings of auxin signaling, enzyme stability, and metabolic engineering. Key publications include 'Enhancing the nutritional value of fava beans: Challenges and emerging strategies for minimization of antinutrients' (Khan, F. et al., Food Chemistry, 2025), 'How is auxin linked with cellular energy pathways to promote growth?' (Tivendale, N.D. & Millar, A.H., New Phytologist, 2022), 'In vivo homopropargylglycine incorporation enables sampling, isolation and characterization of nascent proteins from Arabidopsis thaliana' (Tivendale, N.D. et al., Plant Journal, 2021), 'Knockdown of Succinate Dehydrogenase Assembly Factor 2 Induces Reactive Oxygen Species-Mediated Auxin Hypersensitivity Causing pH-Dependent Root Elongation' (Tivendale, N.D. et al., Plant & Cell Physiology, 2021), and 'The number of catalytic cycles in an enzyme's lifetime and why it matters to metabolic engineering' (Hanson, A.D. et al., PNAS, 2021). He has produced 17 research outputs, including articles and reviews.