Overview

David Parker is a Platform Leader in Shell's Biodomain, a group specifically set up to carry out cutting edge R&D in the bio to product arena. Over his time in Shell David Parker has a lead research activity in a wide range of scientific disciplines including algal/microbial routes to hydrocarbons, economic modelling and scale up for a wide variety of compounds and processes. David Parker is responsible for the delivery of multimillion dollar programs both in-house and globally and has worked in collaboration with academic institutes around the world from China to the US. Over the past 4 Years David Parker has been personally involved with Exeter, more recently becoming a visiting Professor, managing in collaboration with John Love on a wide range of multi discipline programs. Current programs lead by David Parker are employing leading edge synthetic biology approaches to look for new routes to industrially relevant processes and feedstock usage. David Parker has published several papers including PNAS, Nature protocols, Trends in Plant Science and BMC Bioinformatics.

Key publications

James Belcher, Kirsty J. McLean, Sarah Matthews, Laura S. Woodward, Karl Fisher, Stephen E. J. Rigby, David R. Nelson, Donna Potts, Michael T. Baynham, David A. Parker, David Leys and Andrew W. Munro. Structure and biochemical properties of the alkene producing OleTJE (CYP152L1) from Jeotgalicoccus sp. 8456.  JBC, January 18th 2014.

Howard, T.P., Middelhaufe, S., Moore, K., Edner, C., Kolak, D.M., Taylor, G.N., Parker, D.A., Lee, R., Smirnoff, N., Aves, S.J., et al (2013). Synthesis of customized petroleum-replica fuel molecules by targeted modification of free fatty acid pools in Escherichia coli. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A, 110(19), 7636-7641.

Parker, D., Beckmann, M., Zubair, H., Enot, D. P., Caracuel-Rios, Z., Overy, D. P., Snowdon, S., Talbot, N. J. and Draper., J.  Metabolomic analysis reveals a common pattern of metabolic re-programming during invasion of three host plant species by Magnaporthe grisea The Plant Journal 2009 59, 723-737

Parker, D. Beckmann, M., Enot, D. P., Overy, D. P., Caracuel-Rios, Z., Gilbert, M., Talbot, N. and Draper, J.  Rice blast infection of Brachypodium distachyon as a model system to study dynamic host/pathogen interactions Nature Protocols 2008 3, 435-445

Opanowicz, M., Vain, P., Draper, J., Parker, D. and Doonan, J. H. Brachypodium distachyon: Making hay with a wild grass Trends in Plant Sciences 2008 4, 172-177

Qualifications

BSc, PhD