Chris Betts

Hi! I'm a PhD student within the mighty machine that is Monash Computer Science; supervised by Dr. Damian Conway from Computer Science, and Dr. Rosemary White, a Botanist in the department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology.

I'm mainly trying to use Computer techniques to unravel the secrets of the Universe - especially those secrets bound up with Cell Physiology. I'm working on proteins involved in transport within and between cells - how they fit together, and how they are created in the first place.

The proteins responsible for moving things around within a cell form the "cytoskeleton". I'm working on modelling how these proteins form and break apart, which is part of the larger problem of Protein Assembly. I'm also studying how materials move between cells in plants, which means studying plasmodesmata, small tunnels in the cell walls of plants, that allow chemicals to move between adjacent plant cells.

In the past I've also worked on a high-performance, real time relativity simulator. The system allows programs such as flight simulators and physics programs to quickly render what scenes would look like if things were moving close to the speed of light (If anyone from Star Trek is listening maybe we should have a chat about that "going to warpspeed" sequence... ).

I'm also keen on computer graphics - and have spent far too much time fooling around with the Povray raytracer. Among other things I've used it to raytrace biological models, and just for general play images (including the lacework egg that forms the background of this page).

Other Interests



Chris Betts / cbetts@bruce.cs.monash.edu.au