QUT offers a diverse range of student topics for Honours, Masters and PhD study. Search to find a topic that interests you or propose your own research topic to a prospective QUT supervisor. You may also ask a prospective supervisor to help you identify or refine a research topic.
Found 75 matching student topics
Displaying 37–48 of 75 results
An airway chip for screening viral infection mediated immune responses
Respiratory infections such as influenza, SARS-COV-2, , and MERS are increasingly prevalent. Complications and related deaths arising from these infections are often the result of a “cytokine storm”, whereby there is an over production of proinflammatory soluble factors by immune cells, which dictates symptoms severity and mortality risk [1]. Recent works showed that immunomodulatory therapy with or without antiviral agents may improve recovery outcome. However, the screening of suitable immune-modulatory and antiviral agents relies heavily on animal models which cannot …
- Study level
- PhD, Master of Philosophy, Honours
- Faculty
- Faculty of Health
- School
- School of Biomedical Sciences
Understanding the immunological mechanisms that regulate increased susceptibility to respiratory syncytial viral infection after stem cell transplantation
Allogeneic stem cell transplantation (alloSCT) is considered the gold standard procedure for the treatment of blood cancers. Globally, over 9000 patients per year undergo this high-risk, life-saving therapy. However, major complications limit the therapeutic potential of this treatment which include graft-versus-host disease (GVHD) and infections due to the severe immunosuppression in these patients. Respiratory syncytial viral (RSV) infection is frequent in these patients, is often fatal and clearly a significant clinical problem. Thus, there is a pressing need for new …
- Study level
- PhD, Master of Philosophy, Honours
- Faculty
- Faculty of Health
- School
- School of Biomedical Sciences
Investigating the role of Neuropilin-1 in Triple-Negative Breast Cancer metastasis and chemoresistance
Triple-negative breast cancers (TNBC) are negative for Estrogen Receptor, Progesterone Receptor and HER2 expression, are clinically aggressive and are unresponsive to the available hormonal or targeted drugs used for other breast cancer subtypes, so that TNBC patients rely mainly on chemotherapy. TNBC accounts for 15-20% of all invasive breast cancer and patients have increased risk of recurrence, mortality and early metastatic progression. Thus, there is an urgent clinical need to develop improved treatment strategies for TNBC. Neuropilin-1 (NRP1) is a …
- Study level
- PhD, Master of Philosophy, Honours
- Faculty
- Faculty of Health
- School
- School of Biomedical Sciences
Can virus-based defective interfering particles (DIPS) be used to treat dengue infection?
Infection by dengue virus causes incapacitating and potentially dangerous acute disease in humans. Dengue is a mosquito-borne infectious disease with about 100 million serious clinical infections annually. Considerable effort in drug development is underway, but no effective drug therapy is available. A major difficulty for drug development is the rapid evolution of RNA viruses, like dengue virus, which presents a major challenge for controlling virus transmission and infection using conventional pharmaceuticals and vaccines.This project is based on the observation that …
- Study level
- Master of Philosophy
- Faculty
- Faculty of Health
- School
- School of Biomedical Sciences
Novel therapeutic strategies to treat advanced colorectal cancer
Colorectal cancer is a very common disease, with over 15,000 new cases diagnosed in Australia annually. Metastatic colorectal cancer describes advanced disease that has spread beyond the primary site. This is very aggressive and incurable in the vast majority of these patients. To improve outcomes for colorectal cancer, we are using cutting edge genomic and cell biology techniques to understand disease heterogeneity and optimise drug response. We are developing novel therapeutic interventions based on unique molecular signatures and are testing …
- Study level
- Master of Philosophy, Honours
- Faculty
- Faculty of Health
- School
- School of Biomedical Sciences
Early prevention of inflammation-related diseases: characterization and use of milk and infant formula
Our belief in the importance of the 'first thousand days' and the critical part that nutrition plays has led my group to studies evaluating the composition and actions of milk and infant formula.Our studies of exosomes in biological fluids have led us to consider their presence and potential roles in milk and thus nutrition. To date, we have mainly determined proteomic contents (cargo) of exosomes but have been increasingly swayed by the literature suggesting important roles for microRNAs in general …
- Study level
- PhD, Master of Philosophy, Honours
- Faculty
- Faculty of Health
- School
- School of Biomedical Sciences
Activity and potential of cannabidiol and related compounds for the treatment of neuroinflammation
Epilepsy is neurological disorder estimated to affect over 50 million people worldwide. Only 20–30% of epilepsy cases have a suspected cause. The remaining cases of epilepsies arise in the absence of obvious neurological deficits, intellectual disability, or brain injuries. Neuroinflammation has shown to be linked to neurological diseases such as epilepsy. Neuroinflammation is a normal response that helps to maintain equilibrium. When the inflammation continues for an extended period of time or is overactive it can cause cellular abnormalities seen …
- Study level
- PhD, Master of Philosophy, Honours
- Faculty
- Faculty of Health
- School
- School of Biomedical Sciences
Early detection of complications in human pregnancy
Complications of pregnancy, including preterm birth represent the major causes of fetal and neonatal morbidity and mortality and potentially affect childhood and adult susceptibility to both cardiac and metabolic diseases. Early detection of these disorders is, therefore, essential to improve health outcomes for mother and baby.Exosomes are small (40-120 nm), stable, lipid bilayer nanovesicles identified in biological fluids (e.g. in milk, blood, urine and saliva). They contain a diverse array of signalling molecules, including mRNA, microRNA (miR), proteins, lipids and …
- Study level
- PhD, Master of Philosophy, Honours
- Faculty
- Faculty of Health
- School
- School of Biomedical Sciences
Uses of exosomes as therapeutic delivery systems
Exosomes are small (40-120 nm), stable, lipid bilayer nanovesicles identified in biological fluids (e.g. in milk, blood, urine and saliva). They contain a diverse array of signalling molecules, including mRNA, microRNA (miR), proteins, lipids and membrane receptors, and they interact with target cells via multiple pathways. The cargo of circulating exosomes can be indicative of a specific tissue’s health status, granting the capacity for use of exosomes as a tool for disease diagnosis. Moreover, they have many of the features …
- Study level
- PhD, Master of Philosophy, Honours
- Faculty
- Faculty of Health
- School
- School of Biomedical Sciences
Improving cow fertility: targeting exosome-responsive pathways
Exosomes are small (40-120 nm), stable, lipid bilayer nanovesicles identified in biological fluids (e.g. in Until recently, genetic selection in dairy cows has focused primarily on milk production traits, with very few countries including functional traits such as fertility in selection indices. Poor reproductive efficiency in dairy herds results in fewer calves, reduced milk production, high involuntary culling rates and increased cow maintenance costs. The need for, and utility of, markers of early onset of diseases (or vulnerability to diseases) …
- Study level
- PhD, Master of Philosophy
- Faculty
- Faculty of Health
- School
- School of Biomedical Sciences
Potential for defective interfering particles (DIPS) to interrupt mammal-mosquito transmission of dengue virus
Dengue is a major mosquito-borne disease affecting 390 million people annually across 100 countries. Disease results from infection with dengue viruses, which are single positive-stranded RNA viruses in the family Flaviviridae. Defective interfering particles (DIPs) are virus-like particles with greatly reduced genomes that are byproducts of RNA virus replication and replicate only in the presence of standard virus (Vignuzzi and Lopez 2019, doi: 10.1038/s41564-019-0465-y). DIPs occur naturally during Dengue infection (Li et al. 2011, doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0019447) and suppress DENV replication …
- Study level
- Master of Philosophy
- Faculty
- Faculty of Health
- School
- School of Biomedical Sciences
Therapeutic opportunities targeting epigenetic-metabolism crosswalks in cancer
Epigenetic and metabolic pathways in cancer cells are highly interconnected. Epigenetic landscape in cancer cells is modified by oncogene-driven metabolic changes. Metabolites modulate the activities of epigenetic modifying enzymes to regulate the expression of specific genes. Conversely, epigenetic deregulation that occurs in cancer affect the expression of metabolic genes, thereby altering the metabolome. These changes all coordinately enhance cancer cell proliferation, metastasis and therapy resistance.The overall aim of the project is to understand the link between the activity of epigenetic …
- Study level
- Master of Philosophy, Honours
- Faculty
- Faculty of Health
- School
- School of Biomedical Sciences
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