Contact Details
- Phone
- +64 3 479 7081
- richard.cannon@otago.ac.nz
- Position
- Professor of Molecular Microbiology
- Department
- Department of Oral Sciences
- Qualifications
- MA PhD(Cantab)
- Research summary
- Oral biology, oral microbiology and antifungal drug resistance
- Teaching
- Professor Cannon teaches oral microbiology to dental students, oral health students, and dental technology students
Research
Professor Cannon is a molecular microbiologist with research interests in oral microbial infections, oral biology, and tissue regeneration. He has studied the role of saliva in oral colonisation by bacteria and yeast. He has investigated the virulence genes of the oral fungal pathogen Candida albicans. Professor Cannon has applied molecular biology and metabolomic approaches to investigate dimorphism in C. albicans and the molecular basis of cancer.
A major focus of his research is the drug resistance of human fungal pathogens. He has found that clinically significant fungal drug resistance is due to energy-dependent drug efflux from the cell. His research group has developed a unique system for expressing and studying these efflux pumps, and other membrane proteins, in baker's yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae. He is currently using S. cerevisiae strains expressing efflux pumps from a variety of fungi to study pump function and structure and to search for pump inhibitors. Professor Cannon also contributes to research on tissue regeneration of relevance to bone defects and periodontal disease.