I am a molecular biologist with a background in microbiology, genetics and biochemistry. My research career started with the development of metagenomic gene discovery technology. It has been estimated that less than 1% of the extent bacterial diversity in the environment (collectively termed the Metagenome) is available in culture collections. Metagenomic DNA extraction and gene discovery aims to recover as much of these uncultured genomes as possible and to exploit it for the recovery of novel and potentially useful genes for the biotechnology industry. The aim of this project was to recover novel bacterial laccases from metagenomic DNA samples through the construction, and expression screening of metagenomic DNA libraries, gene specific PCR approaches as well as a novel subtractive hybridization technique that allows the recovery of multiple target full-length ORFs.

My research interests then changed to the field of vaccinology where as a Post-Doctoral researcher in the Genetics Department at the University of Pretoria I was involved with a larger program aimed at the development of a general purpose vaccine delivery system for use against diseases such as African horsesickness (AHS) and Foot-and-mouth disease (FMD). Here I continued my training in protein chemistry and engineering including directed evolution, site directed mutagenesis and various protein expression systems.
 

Articles

Rutkowska DA, Meyer QC, Maree F, Vosloo W, Fick W and H Huismans.(2011).The use of soluble African horse sickness viral protein 7 as an antigen delivery and presentation system. Virus Research 156(1-2):35-48.
 

Cowan DA, Meyer Q, Stafford W, Muyanga S, Cameron R and P Wittwer. (2005). Metagenomic Gene Discovery: Past, Present and Future. Trends in Biotechnology 23(6): 321-329.

Cowan DA, Arslanoglu A, Burton SG, Baker GC, Smith JJ, Meyer QC and R Cameron. 2004. Metagenomics, gene discovery and the ideal biocatalyst. Biochemical Society Transactions Apr;32 (Pt 2):298-302.

Meyer QC, Cowan DA and SG Burton. 2006. Subtractive hybridization magnetic bead capture: A new technique for the recovery of full length ORFs from the metagenome. Biotechnology Journal Jan 2(1): 36 - 40.

Book Chapters

Tracy Meiring, Inonge Mulako, Marla I. Tuffin, Quinton Meyer, and Donald A. Cowan. 2009. Retrieval of Full Length Functional Genes using Subtractive Hybridization Magnetic Bead Capture. Methods in Molecular Biology. Molecular in Metagenomics. Edited by W. Streit and R, Daniel. Humana press Inc., Totowa NJ (In press)

Posters

Meyer, Q., Rutkowska, D., Fick, W., Vosloo, W. and Huismans, H. The Use of Soluble Trimers of African Horsesickness - or Bluetongue Virus VP7 as a Display Vector for Presenting Immunologically Important Peptides to the Immune System. 2nd Global Congress on Vaccine, Boston MA, USA, December 2008.

Meyer, Q., Smith, J.J., Harrison, S.T.L., Burton, S.G., Soloman, M., and Cowan, D.A. Recovering novel genes from environmental DNA samples via a gene specific PCR method. 18th congress of the South African Society of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology SASBMB, Pretoria, July 2003.

Meyer, Q., Harrison, S.T.L., Burton, S.G., Soloman, M. and D.A. Cowan. The recovery of novel genes encoding oxidative enzymes from microbial community DNA. Cape Biotech. Somerset West. November 2002.

Meyer, Q., van Rensburg, R., Riley, J. and H. Huismans. The effect of a variety of small amino acid insertions in the top domain of African horse sickness virus core protein VP7 on crystal formation, and solubility. XVII BIENNIAL CONFERENCE ON PHAGE/VIRUS ASSEMBLY - Hanasaari Congress Center, Espoo, Finland, June, 2001.

Huismans, H., Maree, F.F., Riley, J. and Q. Meyer. Effects of site directed insertion mutagenesis on the crystal formation, solubility and core-like particle formation of African Horsesickness virus VP7. 7th Conference on double stranded RNA viruses. Aruba, December, 2000.

Meyer, Q.C., Maree, F.F. and H. Huismans. 2000. Effect of site directed mutations in the major core protein, VP7 of African horse sickness virus on solubility and core-like particle assembly. 17th Congress of the South African Genetics Society. Pretoria. June 2000.