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 121 matching student topics
Displaying 25–36 of 121 results
Spatial profiling of the tumour microenvironment
Lung cancers are the leading cause of cancer related deaths in Australia, with a 5-year survival of 15%. With the emerging success of immune checkpoint blockage leading to durable responses and prolonged survival in 15-40% of cases, there is now a need for predictive biomarkers to guide selection for immunotherapies.The immune contexture of the tumour microenvironment (TME) is an important factor in dictating how well a tumour may respond to immune checkpoint therapies (1). Spatial and immunological composition with cellular …
- Study level
- PhD, Master of Philosophy
- Faculty
- Faculty of Health
- School
- School of Biomedical Sciences
Early diagnosis of pregnancy complications using exosomes
Complications of pregnancy, including preterm birth represent the major causes of fetal and neonatal morbidity and mortality and potentially affect childhood and adult susceptibility to both cardiac and metabolic diseases. Early detection of these disorders is, therefore, essential to improve health outcomes for mother and baby.Exosomes are small (40-120 nm), stable, lipid bilayer nanovesicles identified in biological fluids (e.g. in milk, blood, urine and saliva). They contain a diverse array of signalling molecules, including mRNA, microRNA (miR), proteins, lipids and …
- Study level
- Master of Philosophy, Honours
- Faculty
- Faculty of Health
- School
- School of Biomedical Sciences
Investigating DNA repair mechanisms in aging adult stem cells
When we age the DNA repair systems of our cells become down regulated. This results in reduced DNA repair capacity, enhanced rates of mutation load and may lead to the development of chronic aging-associated diseases including osteoporosis, Alzheimer's and cancer(1). So it is no surprise that genome instability and stem cell exhaustion, which also strongly correlates with the accumulation of DNA damage, are considered hallmarks of aging(2).However, we still lack a clear understanding on how the decrease in DNA repair …
- Study level
- PhD, Master of Philosophy, Honours
- Faculty
- Faculty of Health
- School
- School of Biomedical Sciences
Understanding the role of the hSSB1 protein in the response to UV induced DNA damage
Melanoma is the 4th most common cancer in Australia. The link between skin cancer and UV exposure is now well established. If a DNA damage induced by UV exposure is left unrepaired, the mutation generated in the genome can lead to cell death or cancer. It is thus highly important to understand of how a cell can repair DNA damage. The main pathway to repair UV DNA damaged is the nucleotide excision repair pathway (NER) (Kamileri I. et al, Trends …
- Study level
- Honours
- Faculty
- Faculty of Health
- School
- School of Biomedical Sciences
Assessing visual acuity errors in pre-school children (CVER01)
Measuring visual acuity is in preschool children is challenging. In particular, young children will be prone to making mistakes in identifying symbols on eye charts, even when they can see what those symbols are, so called “false negative responses”.This project uses an established vision assessment protocol, EVA testing, and assesses the extent of false negative responses in this task. The protocol assesses the effects of an intervention, pointing to the target on a card, which may decrease false negative responses. …
- Study level
- PhD
- Faculty
- Faculty of Health
- School
- School of Clinical Sciences
- Research centre(s)
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Centre for Vision and Eye Research
A Human-centric eXplainable Automated Vehicle
CARRS-Q has developed a strong expertise in AV and ADAS, and operate an Automated Vehicle for its research on test track and open roads.We have collected more than 12,000km of sensor data in various Australian conditions, and we are progressing quickly to a broader understanding of safe operation of AV technologies on our roads. We are looking for PhD candidates to progress further on these topics. PhD positions are available for highly motivated domestic and/or international students to work on …
- Study level
- PhD
- Faculty
- Faculty of Health
- School
- School of Psychology and Counselling
Renewal and differentiation in human neural stem cells and their application to understanding neurological disorders
The effective regeneration of brain tissue requires an understanding of the factors mediating the damage as well as the integration of new/replacement cells to form new functional neural networks. The isolation and expansion of human stem cells and limited neural lineage differentiation have provided the foundation for strategies in the treatment of neurodegenerative disorders. We utilise iPSC-derived NPCs and patient-derived (Alzheimer’s disease; AD) iPSCs and neural lineage differentiation of hMSCs, iPSC NPCs and AD iPSCs in neuronal and glial culture …
- Study level
- PhD, Master of Philosophy, Honours
- Faculty
- Faculty of Health
- School
- School of Biomedical Sciences
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)
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Centre for Microbiome Research
Targeting a novel adaptive neovascular response of the tumour microenvironment to treat advanced prostate cancer
Prostate cancer (PCa) is a significant healthcare burden in Australia. Androgen signalling inhibition using androgen receptor (AR) antagonists is the principal systemic therapy for advanced PCa. Androgen receptors (AR) are an attractive therapeutic target due to their elevated expression in tumour epithelial cells and the retention of androgen signalling throughout the disease continuum.However, patients eventually develop resistance to treatment, and PCa cells metastasise to distant bone and visceral organs, representing an incurable stage of the disease. Understanding mechanisms that contribute …
- Study level
- PhD, Master of Philosophy, Honours
- Faculty
- Faculty of Health
- School
- School of Biomedical Sciences
The efficacy of Mental Health First Aid (MHFA) training in community sport
Organised sport is primarily community based in Australia; and the benefits of sport participation to individuals and communities are well documented. However, there is also evidence that participating in organised high-performance sporting programs is associated with psychological distress, elevated relative to community norms, which would usually warrant a need for care by a health professional. As such a case for improvement in mental health education and practice in sporting communities exists.Mental Health First Aid (MHFA) is a standardised, psychoeducational programme …
- Study level
- PhD, Master of Philosophy
- Faculty
- Faculty of Health
- School
- School of Exercise and Nutrition Sciences
Symbiosis in microbial ecosystems
Soil systems are fundamentally important to the health of our planet, but the complexity of soil microbial communities makes them particularly challenging to study. Soil systems are amongst the most diverse microbial ecosystems on Earth in terms of the number of microbial species (and strains) present within individual samples, and in the breadth of functions encoded. Beyond complexity measured by counting distinct community members, interactions between microbial species including symbiosis, parasitism or commensalism are widespread and yet barely studied.
- Study level
- PhD, Master of Philosophy, Honours
- Faculty
- Faculty of Health
- School
- School of Biomedical Sciences
- Research centre(s)
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Centre for Microbiome Research
Estimating the evolutionary history of plasmids and viruses
In the case of cellular life - bacteria, archaea and eukaryotes - determining the 'tree of life' is a comparatively well-studied problem.This vertical evolutionary history can be estimated using concatenated gene phylogenies, where single copy marker genes are concatenated into a single multiple sequence alignment which is then used in a phylogenetic tree reconstruction algorithm.Viral genomes and plasmid sequences, meanwhile, are more challenging to fit into a phylogenetic framework.
- Study level
- PhD, Master of Philosophy, Honours
- Faculty
- Faculty of Health
- School
- School of Biomedical Sciences
- Research centre(s)
-
Centre for Microbiome Research
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