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 12 matching student topics
Displaying 1–12 of 12 results
A preclinical evaluation pipeline for new antivirulence drugs targeting multidrug resistant bacterial pathogens
A post-antibiotic era—in which common infections and minor injuries can kill—far from being an apocalyptic fantasy, is instead a very real possibility for the 21st century.’ - WHO, 2014 (1). Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is a global public health priority. If no action is taken, AMR is predicted to kill more people than cancer and diabetes combined by 2050, with 10 million deaths estimated each year and a global cost of up to 100 trillion USD. New therapies to tackle multidrug …
- Study level
- Master of Philosophy, Honours
- Faculty
- Faculty of Health
- School
- School of Biomedical Sciences
Race for the surface: helping implants to win the race
The recent COVID-19 pandemic reminds us of how difficult it is to control infectious diseases. Pathogenic microorganisms are known to be extremely 'smart' and are able to quickly develop mechanisms against most of our strategies aimed at eradicating them.Our group is focused on bacterial infections to implants and medical devices. We are in the pursuit to outsmart the bacteria to develop the next generation medical device and implant materials.When a biomaterial is implanted into the body and bacteria get into …
- 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
Bacteria - mammalian cell interactions in implant-associated infections
The recent COVID-19 pandemic reminds us of how difficult it is to control infectious diseases. Pathogenic microorganisms are known to be extremely 'smart' and are able to quickly develop mechanisms against most of our strategies aimed at eradicating them. Our group is focused on bacterial infections to implants and medical devices. We are in the pursuit to outsmart the bacteria to develop the next generation medical device and implant materials.Anthony Gristina conceptualized in 1987 that bacteria compete with tissue cells …
- 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
Understanding and manipulating bacterial motility for infection control (PhD)
The recent COVID 19 pandemic reminds us of how difficult it is to control infectious diseases. Pathogenic microorganisms are known to be extremely 'smart' and are able to quickly develop mechanisms against most of our strategies aimed at eradicating them. Our group is focused on bacterial infections to implants and medical devices. We are in the pursuit to outsmart the bacteria to develop the next generation medical device and implant materials.Bacterial motility/movement and group-coordination on surfaces and in 3-dimensional environment …
- Study level
- PhD
- Faculty
- Faculty of Engineering
- School
- School of Mechanical, Medical and Process Engineering
- Research centre(s)
- Centre for Biomedical Technologies
Understanding and manipulating bacterial motility for infection control
The recent COVID 19 pandemic reminds us of how difficult it is to control infectious diseases. Pathogenic microorganisms are known to be extremely 'smart' and are able to quickly develop mechanisms against most of our strategies aimed at eradicating them. Our group is focused on bacterial infections to implants and medical devices. We are in the pursuit to outsmart the bacteria to develop the next generation medical device and implant materials.Bacterial motility/movement and group-coordination on surfaces and in 3-dimensional environment …
- Study level
- PhD
- Faculty
- Faculty of Engineering
- School
- School of Mechanical, Medical and Process Engineering
- Research centre(s)
- Centre for Biomedical Technologies
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
Characterisation of emerging multidrug resistant E. coli pathogens
The last fifteen years have witnessed an unprecedented rise in the rates of antimicrobial resistance among Gram-negative bacteria, described by the World Health organisation as a global health crisis (1). Escherichia coli sequence type 131 (E. coli ST131) is a ‘high-risk’ group of Gram-negative pathogens that have emerged rapidly and spread worldwide in the period of the last 10 years (2). E. coli ST131 strains are typically resistant to multiple classes of antibiotics and cause bloodstream and urinary tract infections …
- Study level
- 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
Traces of zinc and ciprofloxacin loaded polymer nanoparticulate inhaled formulations against lung infections associated with COPD and CF (CLIN08)
Lower respiratory tract infections (LRTIs) are one of the fatal diseases of the lungs that have severe impacts on public health, especially for Indigenous people. The currently available antibiotics administered orally for the treatment of LRTIs need high doses with frequent administration and cause dose-related adverse effects. To overcome this problem, we will investigate the development of ciprofloxacin (CIP) loaded poly(2-ethyl-2-oxazoline) (PEtOx) nanoparticles (NPs) with traces of zinc for potential pulmonary delivery from dry powder inhaler (DPI) formulations. As zinc …
- Study level
- PhD
- Faculty
- Faculty of Health
- School
- School of Clinical Sciences
- Research centre(s)
-
Centre for Immunology and Infection Control
Understanding capsular polysaccharide diversity is key to next generation therapies for multi-drug resistant Acinetobacter baumannii infections
Bacteriophage therapy is an attractive innovative treatment for infections caused by extensively drug resistant Acinetobacter baumannii, for which there are few effective antibiotic treatments remaining.Capsular polysaccharide (CPS) is a primary receptor for lytic bacteriophage, thus knowledge of the chemical structures of CPS produced by the species underpins the identification of suitable phage for therapeutic cocktails.As many phage depolymerases cleave a specific CPS linkage formed by either a glycosyltransferase or polymerase enzyme, characterisation of these proteins are essential.However, these remain largely …
- Study level
- PhD
- Faculty
- Faculty of Health
- School
- School of Biomedical Sciences
- Research centre(s)
-
Centre for Immunology and Infection Control
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
An airway chip for screening viral infection mediated immune responses
Respiratory infections such as influenza, SARS-COV-2, COVID-19, 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. 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 can't capture …
- Study level
- PhD, Master of Philosophy
- Faculty
- Faculty of Engineering
- School
- School of Mechanical, Medical and Process Engineering
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