Scholarship details
Study levels
Research and PhD
Student type
Future students
Study area
Science, technology and engineering and mathematics
Eligibility criteria
Academic performance
Application dates
- Applications open
- 8 March 2024
- Applications close
- 19 April 2024
What you'll receive
You'll receive a scholarship, tax exempt and indexed annually, of $32,192 per annum for a period of three years, with a possible 6 month extension, subject to satisfactory progress.
If you're an international student, you will also receive either:
- an Australian Government Research Training Program (RTP) fees offset (International)
- a QUT research degree (HDR) tuition fee scholarship.
As the scholarship recipient, you will have the opportunity to work with a team of leading researchers and undertake your own innovative research across the ARC Centre of Excellence in Synthetic Biology.
Eligibility
To apply for this scholarship, you must meet the entry requirements for a Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) at QUT, including any English language requirements for international students.
You must also:
- enrol as a full time, internal student
- have a science/engineering background preferably in chemical or biochemical engineering.
Research experience will be highly valued, including publications in reputable journals, if any. Skills and interests in process modelling, bioprocess engineering, fermentation, and operations research are desired.
How to apply
You must submit an expression of interest (EOI) for consideration before applying for this scholarship by Friday, 19 April 2024.
How to apply for a research degree
To be considered for this scholarship, you must:
- nominate Dr Jerome Ramirez as your principal supervisor
- in the financial details section, enter the details of this scholarship at question 2.
If your expression of interest is accepted you will be invited to submit a full application including a research proposal to finalise your application. You must be accepted into QUT’s Doctor of Philosophy program to receive this scholarship.
What happens next?
Successful applicants will be contacted directly.
Contact Dr Jerome Ramirez with any questions about the project, or hdr@qut.edu.au with any questions about the application process.
About the scholarship
This scholarship is for the project 'Optimised strategies for the industrial symbiosis of the sugar industry with synthetic biology-driven precision fermentation'.
Project description
Sugar production is one of the world’s largest rural industries and drives the global economy through its $56 billion in global revenue and 1 million jobs worldwide. The industry is sensitive to weather conditions and the global demand and supply. Many factors such as competition from large sugar producers, crude oil price and trade liberalisation strategies can make global sugar price volatile. Therefore, there are opportunities to add value to raw sugar by developing it as a reliable and high quality substrate for emerging precision fermentation technologies.
Precision fermentation is based on the ability of the engineered microbe to utilise a carbon source efficiently to support its growth and reproduction and produce the target biochemical product. Advances in synthetic biology allow numerous biochemical compounds such as organics, proteins, lipids or carbohydrates to be produced by a properly modified organism, although the production at scale relies on a steady supply of substrate material. Among various substrates, sugars are preferred for ease of handling and storage, chemical simplicity, high water solubility, and availability.
Coupling a precision fermentation process to a sugar production process has the potential to add value to the sugar industry through the production of valuable biochemical products. The PhD project will seek to investigate the technical aspects of integrating synthetic biology-driven precision fermentation with the sugar industry through process modelling, optimisation and technoeconomic analyses. The project aims to develop models that show pathways to transition conventional sugar industries to innovative synthetic biology-driven biorefineries based on precision fermentation technologies. Computational models can then be developed to gain knowledge on the precision fermentation process and its interactions to the sugar production process. Further analysis of pathway scenarios will be done for specific fermentation product lines that maximise value for the whole of industry.