Richard Mollard:

Director:         Amphicell Pty Ltd
Owner:            Bivalin

Education:

Phd     Monash University (1996), Molecular and Developmental Biology
MBA    Melbourne Business School (2006), University of Melbourne

Research:

  1. Université Louis-Pasteur in conjunction with Bristol Myers Squibb (1997-2000). L’institut de génétique et de biologie moléculaire et cellulaire (IGBMC)
  2. University of Michigan in conjunction with Eli Lilly and Co (2000-2001)
  3. Monash University (2001–2009)
  4. University of Melbourne  (2011 – present)

Biomedical and Pharmaceutical Company Consulting:

Bivalin (2010 – present)

Background:

Australia possesses a large diversity of frogs, with over 200 native species currently recognised. Greater than 30 Australian native frog species, however, are presently listed as critically endangered, endangered or vulnerable; since 1979, four are considered extinct. The rate of native Australian frog loss is accelerating and as such there is an urgent need to develop methods to safeguard remaining species before they too become extinct. Animal husbandry has proven invaluable for protecting many threatened species, but can suffer from issues of spatial constraint and genetic loss through inbreeding. Amphibian sperm cryopreservation for in vitro fertilisation has been developed for several species, yet methods for cryopreserving amphibian oocytes do not exist, and numbers of cryopreserved gametes are finite, meaning that once used, they cannot be used again. An important complement to animal husbandry and germ cell cryopreservation, overcoming these shortfalls, is somatic cell cryopreservation. Somatic cells can be used as an infinite source of material for cloning initiatives, the safeguarding of nuclear and mitochondrial genomic DNA and, in theory, the eventual production of both sex gametes. Such techniques are well developed or in development for mammalian species and such cloning of vertebrates was first established using amphibian cells. The production of amphibian primary cell cultures and cell lines, however, remains a rare accomplishment. With respect to Australian species, no example of a viable, karyotypically normal and cryobanked amphibian cell line or cell culture exists in the literature. It is not intuitive to commence developing these techniques once an extinction has occurred. At Amphicell we have the capacity to passage, cryopreserve, thaw, and passage again karyotypically normal cells from Australian native amphibian genera/species. It is aimed to extend with priority the cryobanking of prospectively validated cells from all current critically endangered, endangered or vulnerable Australian native amphibians.

Publications:
  1. R. Mollard. Culture, cryobanking and passaging of karyotypically validated native Australian amphibian cells. Cryobiology, 2018. “doi.org/10.1016/j.cryobiol.2018.03.004”.
  2. R. Mollard. Karyomaps of cultured and cryobanked Litoria infrafrenata frog and tadpole cells. Data in Brief, 2018, 18:1372. “10.1016/j.dib.2018.04.025“
  3. R. Mollard et al., The critically endangered species Litoria spenceri demonstrates subpopulation karyotype diversity. Amphibian & Reptile Conservation 2018, 12(2):28                                                                        http://amphibian-reptile-conservation.org/pdfs/Volume/Vol_12_no_2/ARC_12_2_[Special_Section]_28-36_e166_low_res.pdf
  4. R. Mollard. Preventing Further Frog Extinctions and Initiating De-extinctions. Science Trends, 2018 “https://sciencetrends.com/preventing-further-frog-extinctions-and-initiating-de-extinctions/ “
  5. Mollard R, Mahony M (2023) Cell culture and karyotypic description of Pseudophrynecoriacea (Keferstein, 1868) (Amphibia, Anura) from the New South Wales Central Coast. Comp Cytogenet 17: 263-272. doi:10.3897/compcytogen.17.113526.
Key words:

Frog, Australia, endangered, cryopreservation, recovery, karyotyping