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 41 matching student topics
Displaying 13–24 of 41 results
From a descriptive to a predictive understanding of the human microbiome
Microorganisms have a profound influence on biological, environmental, and industrial processes, but understanding the complex dynamics of microbial communities and how to manipulate them to our advantage remains a challenge. CMR Director Professor Gene Tyson has recently been awarded a prestigious ARC Laureate Fellowship that aims to overcome current technological limitations and transform microbial ecology from a descriptive to a predictive science. This will be achieved using as a model the most intensively studied ecosystem on the planet: the human …
- Study level
- PhD
- Faculty
- Faculty of Health
- School
- School of Biomedical Sciences
- Research centre(s)
-
Centre for Microbiome Research
BIOM05 - Application of fluorescence microscopy for the visualization of methane-oxidizing microorganisms in the environment
The archaeal lineage Methanoperedenaceae are anaerobic methanotrophs with a key role in mitigating the atmospheric release of the potent greenhouse gas methane. The metabolic diversity of these microorganisms directly links methane with several key biochemical cycles and suggests a remarkable ability of these microorganisms to adapt to diverse environmental conditions.These microorganisms have never been grown in a laboratory and have only been studied in enrichment cultures with several other partner microorganisms. How these microorganisms grow and interact with these bacterial …
- Study level
- Honours
- Faculty
- Faculty of Health
- School
- School of Biomedical Sciences
- Research centre(s)
-
Centre for Microbiome Research
Functional characterisation of putative salicylic acid hydroxylases from banana (Musa spp.)
Bananas (Musa spp.) are one of the most important fruit crops worldwide and are consumed by millions of people as a staple food. However, bananas are under threat from a wide range of fungal, bacterial and viral diseases which significantly impact their production and quality. Salicylic acid plays a key role in plant-microbe interactions and acts as a vital component in systemic acquired resistance (SAR), enabling plants to mount a long-lasting defence response against a wide range of pathogens. In …
- Study level
- Honours
- Faculty
- Faculty of Science
- School
- School of Biology and Environmental Science
- Research centre(s)
- Centre for Agriculture and the Bioeconomy
Application of fluorescence-activated cell sorting and confocal microscopy for the study of the microbial communities responsible for nutrient removal from domestic wastewater
The removal of nutrients like carbon, nitrogen and phosphorus from wastewater is critical to the prevention of eutrophication in receiving water systems and is carried out by complex microbial communities.Eutrophication can have devastating consequences on aquatic life and natural ecosystems, with toxic algal blooms also posing a risk to human health.Understanding the microbiology of phosphorus (P) removal from wastewater is considered essential to knowledge-based optimisation of enhanced biological P removal (EBPR) systems.Most of the species in these systems are novel …
- Study level
- Honours
- Faculty
- Faculty of Health
- School
- School of Biomedical Sciences
- Research centre(s)
-
Centre for Microbiome Research
Using machine learning to understand how the world’s microbiomes are changing due to climate
Shotgun metagenomic sequencing has become commonplace when studying microbial communities and their relationship with the health of our planet, and their direct effects on our own health. Currently, there are >180,000 shotgun metagenomes publicly available, but until recently trying to treat these data as a resource has been challenging due to its extreme size (>700 trillion base pairs).Recently we have developed a tool that can efficiently convert this base pair information into a straightforward assessment of which microorganisms are present …
- Study level
- PhD, Master of Philosophy, Honours
- Faculty
- Faculty of Health
- School
- School of Biomedical Sciences
- Research centre(s)
-
Centre for Microbiome Research
Searching for Life on Mars on Earth
NASA's newest Mars rover, Perseverance, has just arrived on the red planet. Tasked with searching for ancient life in the geological record of a ~4 billion-year-old crater lake, the mission science team must use our only available analogue - the Earth - as their guide to exploration.
- Study level
- PhD
- Faculty
- Faculty of Science
- School
- School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences
Probing the origins of life on Earth
The history of life on Earth is written in the fossil record. In this project, you will investigate stable isotope evidence for extremely early evolving organisms. Through careful petrography and with the use of isotope ratio mass-spectrometers, you will help unravel the history of microbial metabolisms that powered the ecosystems recorded by 3 billion-year-old microbial fossils.
- Study level
- Master of Philosophy, Honours
- Faculty
- Faculty of Science
- School
- School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences
Using agricultural waste and organic amendments for sustainable agriculture and soil health
Optimising the application rates of organic amendments in agricultural soils is one of the most promising and practical solutions to reduce nitrogen (N) losses into the environment while maintaining an economically-adequate crop production.Organic amendments alone often don't meet the crop's needs. Consequently, a supplementary application of N synthetic fertiliser is needed in conventional farming systems to meet perceived production needs.Accounting for the amount of plant-available N (PAN) released by organic amendments and combining this with N-fertiliser will:ensure N demands of …
- Study level
- PhD, Master of Philosophy, Honours
- Faculty
- Faculty of Science
- School
- School of Biology and Environmental Science
- Research centre(s)
- Centre for Agriculture and the Bioeconomy
Modeling roost selection by flying foxes in Moreton Baty region
- Study level
- Honours
- Faculty
- Faculty of Business and Law
- School
- School of Accountancy
Investigating differences in downstream signalling mediated by two isoforms of FGFR2 in endometrial cancer
FGFR2 encodes two alternatively spliced isoforms that differ in their ligand binding domain and the combination of tissue specific expression of these isoforms and tissue specific expression of the FGF ligands is the foundation of normal paracrine signalling. Isoform switching from FGFR2b (inclusion of exon 8) to FGFR2c (inclusion of exon 9) occurs in tumorigenesis as it establishes an autocrine loop in epithelial cancer cells.We have previously published a detailed investigation into differences between wildtype FGFR2b and mutant FGFR2b following …
- Study level
- Master of Philosophy, Honours
- Faculty
- Faculty of Health
- School
- School of Biomedical Sciences
Mathematical and statistical methods for change point detection in precision fermentation
Precision fermentation uses microorganisms such as yeast to produce valuable biological products for food, biotechnology and synthetic biology. A major challenge is that microbial growth and production can change when cells switch between different metabolic regimes. These changes may occur because of nutrient depletion, stress responses, dilution conditions, or shifts in how cells allocate resources between growth and product formation.This PhD project will develop new mathematical and statistical methods for detecting these metabolic change points from experimental data. The project …
- Study level
- PhD, Master of Philosophy, Honours
- Faculty
- Faculty of Science
- School
- School of Mathematical Sciences
Detecting metabolic regime switching using dilution-resolved growth data: mathematical modelling, statistical inference and uncertainty quantification
Microbial populations rarely grow according to a single fixed physiological program. As nutrients are consumed, waste products accumulate and environmental stress changes, cells can transition between distinct metabolic regimes associated with growth, maintenance, fermentation, respiration and survival. These transitions are biologically important and industrially relevant, but they are often difficult to detect directly from standard growth curve summaries such as maximum growth rate, lag time, carrying capacity or area under the curve.This project will develop new mathematical and statistical methods …
- Study level
- PhD, Master of Philosophy
- Faculty
- Faculty of Science
- School
- School of Mathematical Sciences
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