QUT is celebrating the awarding of $3.2 million in ARC Linkage Projects grants to seven projects.
Acting Senior Deputy Vice-Chancellor & Vice-President (Research) Professor Ana Deletic said QUT had performed exceptionally well in this grant round with a success rate of 31.8 per cent which is above the national success rate of 26.3 per cent.
“My congratulations to our successful applicants and their teams,” Professor Deletic said.
“It is pleasing to see a range of exciting new projects funded in collaboration with our important industry partners and end-users.”
The recipient teams of ARC Linkage grants are:
The project, High Performance Photoinitiators for 3D Laser Lithography, has been awarded a $180,540 ARC Linkage grant with industry partner, Nanoscribe GmbH & Co.
Chief investigator Professor Christopher Barner-Kowollik, from QUT’s Centre for Materials Science, said the project aimed to overcome key challenges of 3D printing on the micrometre scale by developing next generation photoresists for 3D laser lithography.
“We will develop a deep understanding of the wavelength-resolved performance of photoinitiators and link it with their ability to print via two photon absorption to enable printing of 3D structures in the presence of living cells and the elimination of volume shrinking during printing,” Professor Barner Kowollik said.
“The ability to print tiny objects in the presence of living cells is highly interesting in regenerative medicine including the development of 3D printed skin and organs.”
Chief investigator Associate Professor Hendrik Frisch said: “We chose our industry partner NanoScribe for its technology which has applications in micro optics, microfluidics, integrated photonics, life sciences, micromechanics and materials engineering.”
The QUT research team comprises Professor Barner-Kowollik and chief investigators co-director of Centre for Materials Science QUT Professor Kathryn Fairfull-Smith, Associate Professor Frisch and partner investigators Dr Sarah Walden, all from the School of Chemistry and Physics as well as partner investigator Dr Alexander Quick from Nanoscribe GmbH & Co KG.
(Image above, from left: Professor Christopher Barner-Kowollik, Dr Sarah Walden, Associate Professor Hendrik Frisch, Professor Kathryn Fairfull-Smith)
The project, Resolving bottlenecks in natural product biomanufacturing, has received a grant of $545,834 from the ARC Linkage Project grants with partners CSIRO and Delica Therapeutics.
Chief investigator Dr James Behrendorff from QUT School of Biology and Environmental Science, said the synthetic biology project aimed to address the problem of inefficient enzymes limiting key steps during the production of biochemicals.
“Our aim is to combine ancestral protein reconstruction and machine learning to develop superior enzymes for industrial synthesis of natural products including alkaloids and flavones, enabled by our efficient in vitro platform for prototyping enzymes and metabolic pathways,” Dr Behrendorff said.
“Synthetic biology-based manufacturing methods enable biotechnological synthesis of complex natural products that are of high value and can be produced at economically meaningful scales in relatively small facilities.”
The research team comprises Dr Behrendorff and Professor Kirill Alexandrov from the QUT School of Biology and Environmental Science; and chief investigators Professor Elizabeth Gillam, Professor David Ascher, from The University of Queensland; partner investigators Professor Robert Speight, CSIRO, and Cade Turland from, Delica Therapeutics.
(Image above, left Professor Kirill Alexandrov, Dr James Behrendorff)
The project, Precursors for perovskite solar from an Australian minerals supply chain, has been awarded a $588,750 ARC Linkage Projects grant with industry partner, Lava Blue.
Chief investigator QUT Professor Sara Couperthwaite, from the School of Mechanical, Medical and Process Engineering, said the project aimed to develop production processes to transform Australian resources, including mine waste, into photovoltaic precursor materials for next gen solar cells.
“The project addresses the growing demand for perovskite minerals and will create new opportunities for Australia to supply a highly value-added materials for solar cell manufacture,” Professor Couperthwaite said.
“As well as opening new export markets for Australian minerals, the project will make it possible for Australian manufacturers of perovskite solar cells to secure supplies of the necessary inputs from Australian suppliers.”
The research team comprises chief investigators Professor Couperthwaite and Dr Veronica Gray, from the School of Mechanical, Medical and Process Engineering; Professor Hongxia Wang and Associate Professor Wayde Martens, from the QUT School of Chemistry and Physics, and partner investigator Sylvia Tulloch, from Lava Blue.
(Image above, from left: Professor Sara Couperthwaite, Professor Hongxia Wang, Associate Professor Wayde Martens, Dr Veronica Gray.)
The QUT project, Superior Cold-formed steel floor truss systems to modernize construction, has received an ARC Linkage of $379,503, with industry partner Scottsdale Construction Systems.
Chief Investigator Professor Mahen Mahendran, from School of Civil and Environmental Engineering, said the project’s aim was to develop new, improved high-strength, cold-formed steel (CFS) floor truss systems for mid-rise CFS buildings worldwide.
“It will generate new knowledge of the true behaviour and capacity of various CFS truss systems using extensive experimental and numerical studies,” Professor Mahendran said.
“We will develop improved truss systems using simple strengthening techniques, new connections and built-up sections with reliable design methods, which will enable off-site construction to produce faster, safer, sustainable, and low-cost, mid-rise building solutions to address the current housing crisis.”
The researchers are chief investigators Professor Mahendran and Dr Anthony Ariyanayagam from QUT’s School of Civil and Environmental Engineering, and partner investigator Dr Thanuja Ranawaka of Scottsdale Construction Systems.
(Image above: Dr Anthony Ariyanayagam, Professor Mahen Mahendran)
The project, One-step separation and collection for pharmaceutical industry, which includes industry partner Tiger Pharm has been awarded a $818,170 grant from the ARC Linkage Projects round.
Chief investigator Professor Ziqi Sun from QUT’s School of Chemistry and Physics the project’s aim is to develop novel separation and collection membranes for one-step separation and collection of floated or dispersed substances from aqueous media, which is one of the pharmaceutical industry’s most common processes.
“These critical processes in the pharmaceutical industry and represent up to 80 per cent of pharmaceutical manufacturing costs,” Professor Sun said.
“This project will design and manufacture large-scale separation and collection membranes with tuneable surface properties to achieve effective separation and collection performance by learning from the natural, one-step separation and collection mechanisms.”
The chief investigators are Professor Sun from QUT and Professor Jingwei Hou from The University of Queensland and partner investigator Ms Lin Fu from Tiger Pharm.
(Image above: Professor Ziqi Sun)
The project, Assessing the operation of voluntary assisted dying laws in Australia, has been awarded $392,910 from the ARC Linkage Projects grant round.
Lead chief investigators Professors Ben White and Lindy Willmott from QUT’s Australian Centre for Health Law Research said the project would conduct the first national assessment of how Australia’s new voluntary assisted dying (VAD) laws operated in practice.
“The significance of these new laws means they must be carefully monitored but there has been only limited research about them,” Professor White said.
“This project collaborates with VAD Review Boards (independent bodies overseeing operation of VAD) and health departments in five states to assess how VAD systems are operating using non-public data from the five state boards to provide a national assessment of VAD systems,” Professor Willmott said.
Chief investigators include Professor White, Professor Willmott and Dr Rachel Feeney. Partner Organisations are Queensland Health; Queensland Voluntary Assisted Dying Review Board; Western Australian Voluntary Assisted Dying Board; Department of Health of Western Australia; Victorian Voluntary Assisted Dying Review Board; Voluntary Assisted Dying Commission Tasmania; and, the South Australia Department for Health and Wellbeing.
(Image above: Professor Lindy Willmott, Professor Ben White, Dr Rachel Feeney)
The project, Biorefining of brewer's spent grain into novel dietary fibres, has received $382,963 from the ARC Linkage Projects grants program.
Chief investigator Associate Professor Zhanying Zhang, from the School of Mechanical, Medical and Process Engineering, said dietary fibres had a market value of multi-billion dollars and this project aimed to produce them from food industry waste using low-cost green solvents and novel enzymes.
“Our project aims to address the large amounts of organic waste and by-products generated by the food industry which go to landfill or low-value animal feed,” Professor Zhang said.
“Our research will lead to development of an economically viable biorefinery that will accelerate the establishment of a new potentially multi-billion-dollar nutraceutical manufacturing industry in Australia.”
Chief investigator Associate Professor Zhanying Zhang is collaborating with Professor Philip Pope from QUT Centre for Microbiome Research, and Matthew Kronborg from Grainstone Pty Ltd, and Dr Peyman Salehian, from Allozymes Pte Ltd.
(Image above: Professor Philip Pope, Associate Professor Zhanying Zhang).
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