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 542 matching student topics
Displaying 13–24 of 542 results
Development of bioengineered 3D tumour models for preclinical breast cancer research
3D organoid model technologies have led to the development of innovative tools for precision medicine in cancer treatment. Yet, the lack of resemblance to native tumours, and the limited ability to test drugs in a high-throughput mode, has limited translation to practice.This project will progress organoid models by using advanced tissue engineering technologies and high-throughput 3D bioprinting to recreate 'mini-tumours-in-a-dish' from a patient’s own tumour cells, and study the effects of various components of the tumour microenvironment on drug response.In …
- Study level
- PhD, Master of Philosophy, Honours
- Faculty
- Faculty of Health
- School
- School of Biomedical Sciences
- Research centre(s)
- Centre for Biomedical Technologies
Regenerating bone following osteosarcoma tumour resection in a post-chemotherapy treated bone defect
Osteosarcoma (OS) is the most common primary bone cancer in children and adolescents. Standard treatment involves surgical resection of the tumour combined with systemic chemotherapy. While most patients undergo limb-sparing surgery to avoid amputation, this often results in significant morbidity and lifelong complications. These complications stem from the creation of large bone defects, poor healing outcomes, the need for revision surgeries, and long-term prosthetic failureThere is a critical clinical need for regenerative strategies that restore bone integrity and function following …
- Study level
- PhD, Master of Philosophy
- Faculty
- Faculty of Health
- School
- School of Biomedical Sciences
- Research centre(s)
- Centre for Biomedical Technologies
Local drug delivery to prevent osteosarcoma recurrence and metastasis
Osteosarcoma (OS) is the most common primary bone cancer in children and adolescents. Despite aggressive treatment involving multi-agent chemotherapy and wide surgical resection, survival outcomes remain poor, with five year survival as low as 13% for patients with metastatic or recurrent disease. Current treatment relies heavily on systemic chemotherapy, which is associated with significant toxicity and long-term side effects, including cardiotoxicity, nephrotoxicity, and impaired growth and fertility. Local recurrence occurs in up to 30% of patients after surgical resection, often …
- Study level
- PhD, Master of Philosophy
- Faculty
- Faculty of Health
- School
- School of Biomedical Sciences
- Research centre(s)
- Centre for Biomedical Technologies
Develop microfluidic technologies for cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases
The sudden rupture of vulnerable atherosclerotic plaques and subsequent thrombosis formations are responsible for most acute vascular syndromes, such as myocardial infarction and stroke. Many victims who are apparently healthy die suddenly with no prior symptoms. Such deaths could be prevented through surgery or alternative medical therapy, if vulnerable plaques were identified earlier in their natural progression.To address this pressing need, we're developing simple-to-use, high-throughput and highly-informative microfluidic biochips to understand the sequences of molecular events underlying biomechanical thrombosis (mechanobiology). …
- Study level
- PhD, Master of Philosophy
- Faculty
- Faculty of Engineering
- School
- School of Mechanical, Medical and Process Engineering
- Research centre(s)
- Centre for Biomedical Technologies
Develop point-of-care microfluidic technologies for cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases
Excessive clotting (thrombosis) leads to the cardiovascular diseases such as heart attack and stroke, killing one Australian every 12 minutes. It has long been recognized that platelets play a central role in thrombosis and are unique in their ability to form stable adhesive interactions under conditions of rapid blood flow.We've recently discovered a new ‘biomechanical’ prothrombotic mechanism that highlights the remarkable platelet sensitivity to the shear stress gradients of blood flow disturbance. Importantly, we've found that current anti-thrombotic drugs, such …
- Study level
- PhD, Master of Philosophy, Honours
- Faculty
- Faculty of Engineering
- School
- School of Mechanical, Medical and Process Engineering
- Research centre(s)
- Centre for Biomedical Technologies
Centre for Biomedical Technologies
Advanced maintenance of railways
Effective maintenance of railway infrastructure is crucial for safe and comfortable transportation. Rail maintainers currently use a combination of time-based (scheduled) and condition-based approaches to balance the costs and benefits of inspections and maintenance.This project aims to enable advanced maintenance by advanced analysis of degradation patterns, establishment of new predictive models, and development of novel inspection and maintenance optimisation methods to efficiently allocate resources.
- Study level
- PhD, Master of Philosophy, Honours
- Faculty
- Faculty of Engineering
- School
- School of Mechanical, Medical and Process Engineering
How do healthy people sleep? Biomechanics, physiology, and environment - what matters most?
In the Westernized world a person typically spends one third of their life in bed, with more time spent sleeping in a bed than in any other single activity. Sleep amount and quality of sleep have a direct impact on mood, behaviour, motor skills and overall quality of life. Yet, despite how important restful sleep is for the body to maintain good health, there is a comparatively small amount of studies evaluating key multi-factorial and biomechanical determinants of restful sleep …
- Study level
- PhD
- Faculty
- Faculty of Engineering
- School
- School of Mechanical, Medical and Process Engineering
- Research centre(s)
- Centre for Biomedical Technologies
Extraction and formulation of astaxanthin produced in Phaffia rhodozyma fermentations
Traditionally derived from unsustainable petrochemicals, astaxanthin (AX) can also be sustainably produced by microbial fermentation. The yeast Phaffia rhodozyma naturally produces AX as its main fermentation product through sugar assimilation.In previous studies, we improved the bioprocess to produce (upstream) AX in P. rhodozyma. This project aims to investigate the extraction, recovery, and formulation (downstream) of the AX produced in our improved AX production process.AX is a carotenoid pigment and potent antioxidant naturally occurring in some ocean animals such as salmonids …
- Study level
- Master of Philosophy
- Faculty
- Faculty of Science
- School
- School of Biology and Environmental Science
- Research centre(s)
- Centre for Agriculture and the Bioeconomy
Capture and reuse of phosphate nutrients
Nutrients such as ammonium and phosphate species are essential in agriculture. However, release of excessive amounts of nutrients to waterways may result in eutrophication which can lead to toxic algae blooms, killing of fish and destruction of the environment.Compounding this issue is the fact that phosphate rock sources are gradually being exhausted. Hence, finding a means to capture and reuse phosphate species from sources such as wastewater treatment plants is potentially attractive.Consequently, this project involves the development of new phosphate …
- Study level
- PhD, Master of Philosophy, Honours
- Faculty
- Faculty of Engineering
- School
- School of Mechanical, Medical and Process Engineering
Low Cost Catalysts for Biofuels Production
As the world transitions from fossil fuels to biomass based fuels there is a corresponding drive to create new technologies to enable this situation to come to fruition.Biofuels represent one option in terms of mitigating the impacts of global warming.The conversion of biomass to biofuels typically requires a catalyst. Many different materials have been investigated, with zeolites showing considerable promise.However, zeolite catalysts can be expensive and thus there is a challenge to create new catalysts which are low cost.This project …
- Study level
- PhD, Master of Philosophy, Honours
- Faculty
- Faculty of Engineering
- School
- School of Mechanical, Medical and Process Engineering
Value-adding waste materials
Many industries generate copious amounts of waste products.Of particular interest are those wastes generated by the mining sector as typically a large fraction of the ore bodies are dumped or the agricultural sector.Potential solutions we are investigating include:converting aluminosilicate waste to zeolitestransforming inorganic waste to catalyst materialscreation of materials for water and wastewater treatmentmaking activated carbonrenewable fuels,
- Study level
- PhD, Master of Philosophy, Honours
- Faculty
- Faculty of Engineering
- School
- School of Mechanical, Medical and Process Engineering
Green polymer-inorganic composite materials
Composite materials are widely researched and widely used in applications such as aircraft, automobiles, ships, structural components and even the space industry.There is a need to create new composite materials which are environmentally friendly and do not use fossil fuel based products. Moreover, the properties of the composites need to be improved while at the same time minimising the costs involved.Consequently our research group is working on composite materials which not only include inexpensive inorganic fillers from the mining sector …
- Study level
- PhD, Master of Philosophy, Honours
- Faculty
- Faculty of Engineering
- School
- School of Mechanical, Medical and Process Engineering
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