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 19 matching student topics
Displaying 1–12 of 19 results
Using mathematics to understand multiple sclerosis: what causes the immune system to attack the brain?
Every day, we use our bodies to move, think, talk and eat, but for people with multiple sclerosis (MS) these tasks can be virtually impossible. MS is a chronic disease which develops because the immune system has started to attack the nerve cells in the brain. This causes the degradation of parts of the brain and irreversible impairment in physical and mental activity. Unfortunately, this disease has no cure, and while considerable therapeutic advances against this disease have been achieved, …
- Study level
- PhD, Master of Philosophy, Honours
- Faculty
- Faculty of Science
- School
- School of Mathematical Sciences
Targeting leptin's signalling axis to prevent treatment resistance in prostate cancer
Advanced prostate cancer (PCa) is a leading cause of cancer-associated death in Australian men. Anti-androgens, which exploit the tumour’s reliance on androgens for its growth & spread, offer temporary remission in advanced PCa patients, but due to treatment resistance, fail to be curative. A further complication of anti-androgens is that they trigger a deleterious suite of metabolic side-effects resembling obesity/Metabolic syndrome. These symptoms not only impact patient health but promote tumours to be more aggressive & resist treatment. Vital new …
- Study level
- PhD, Master of Philosophy, Honours
- Faculty
- Faculty of Health
- School
- School of Biomedical Sciences
Restoring adiponectin signalling to prevent prostate cancer progression
Advanced prostate cancer (PCa) is a leading cause of cancer-associated death in Australian men. Anti-androgens, which exploit the tumour’s reliance on androgens for its growth and spread, offer temporary remission in advanced PCa patients, but due to treatment resistance, fail to be curative. A further complication of anti-androgens is that they trigger a deleterious suite of metabolic side-effects resembling obesity/Metabolic syndrome. These symptoms not only impact patient health but promote the tumour to be more aggressive and resist treatment. Vital …
- Study level
- PhD, Master of Philosophy, Honours
- Faculty
- Faculty of Health
- School
- School of Biomedical Sciences
Development of a Microfluidic Gut-Brain Axis Chip
The gut microbiome refers to the collection of micro-organisms that are living symbiotically in the human or animal gastrointestinal tract (defined as the “microbiota”), their genetic material as well as the surrounding environmental habitat. It is now appreciated that the microbiome plays an important role in human health and diseases. Many neurodegenerative diseases, such as Parkinson's Disease have been linked to dysregulation of the gut microbiota. However, it is difficult to study gut-brain axis using animal models due to inter-species …
- 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
Centre for Microbiome Research
Optimising delivery of a novel nose-to-brain treatment for brain cancer
Glioblastoma multiforme (GBM) is an aggressive brain cancer with no curative treatment and poor prognosis. One of the biggest challenges with treating GBM is the inability of treatment to cross the blood-brain barrier resulting in poor drug distribution in the brain. Fortunately, scientists have recently developed a novel nose-to-brain delivery system that uses nanoparticles loaded with a chemotherapy drug called paclitaxel. Initial treatment investigations in vivo are showing significant promise in reducing and controlling the tumour burden. While exciting, before …
- Study level
- Master of Philosophy, Honours
- Faculty
- Faculty of Science
- School
- School of Mathematical Sciences
Developing a precision oncology workflow for Osteosarcoma treatment
Osteosarcoma (OS) is the most common malignant bone tumour that primarily affects children and adolescents. With approximately 400 diagnosed cases/year in Australia, OS has the lowest survival rate of all solid cancers and is the leading cause of cancer-related death in Queensland adolescents. Unfortunately, 3 in 4 patients will not survive longer than five years following diagnosis with metastatic OS. Clinical “one size fits all” treatment strategies results in highly variable and unacceptably poor patient responses. Shockingly, both the OS …
- Study level
- PhD, Master of Philosophy
- Faculty
- Faculty of Health
- School
- School of Biomedical Sciences
- Research centre(s)
- Centre for Biomedical Technologies
Engineering bioartificial extracellular tumour microenvironments for Osteosarcoma personalised precision oncology
Osteosarcoma (OS) is the most common malignant bone tumour affecting children and adolescents. Importantly, clinical outcomes have not improved for decades, and bone tumours remain to be a leading cause of cancer-related death in adolescents.By identifying ideal treatment approaches for each individual patient, precision oncology has the potential to significantly improve these outcomes. Yet, its widespread application is hindered by a lack of biomaterials that support the reproducible and robust generation of patient-derived osteosarcoma organoids in vitro.Therefore, this project will …
- Study level
- PhD, Master of Philosophy
- Faculty
- Faculty of Health
- School
- School of Biomedical Sciences
- Research centre(s)
- Centre for Biomedical Technologies
Novel therapeutic strategies to treat advanced colorectal cancer
Colorectal cancer is a very common disease, with over 15,000 new cases diagnosed in Australia annually. Metastatic colorectal cancer describes advanced disease that has spread beyond the primary site. This is very aggressive and incurable in the vast majority of these patients. To improve outcomes for colorectal cancer, we are using cutting edge genomic and cell biology techniques to understand disease heterogeneity and optimise drug response. We are developing novel therapeutic interventions based on unique molecular signatures and are testing …
- Study level
- Master of Philosophy, Honours
- Faculty
- Faculty of Health
- School
- School of Biomedical Sciences
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
Using a natural β-carboline dimer compound to target metabolic vulnerabilities linked to glycolysis in prostate cancer
Prostate cancer is an androgen dependent cancer and treatments are aimed at preventing activation of the androgen receptor. Part of the development of resistance to therapies involves prostate cancers reprogramming their metabolism to overcome metabolic stress induced by these therapies and support growth and survival. This reprogramming involves increases in the rate of glycolysis and intermediate pathways branching from glycolysis. Previously in our laboratory, the natural compound, beta-carboline dimer, BD, was identified to have potent effects on cell viability, cell …
- Study level
- Master of Philosophy, Honours
- Faculty
- Faculty of Health
- School
- School of Biomedical Sciences
Characterisation of melanoma cell membranes to identify novel drug targets
Cell membrane structure and function are altered during tumour development, but to date comprehensive studies on the characterisation of cell membranes of a given cancer are scarce, or are only focused on a particular property (e.g. overall charge, global lipid composition, or specific lipid). In preliminary work we compared the lipidome (i.e. the lipid profile) of a panel of cells, and found the lipid composition of model melanoma cells to be distinct from that of other cancerous and non-cancerous cells. …
- Study level
- PhD
- Faculty
- Faculty of Health
- School
- School of Biomedical Sciences
Development of peptides as therapeutics to treat drug-resistant metastatic melanoma
Melanoma is a very aggressive cancer due to its metastatic potential, and the third most common in Australia. Many patients with metastatic melanoma have strong side effects, do not respond, or develop resistance to current therapies, which results in low survival rate (26% in 5-years). This project aims at developing a new class of therapeutic leads to tackle drug-resistance in metastatic melanoma.Currently, the preferred first-line regimen given to patients with metastatic melanoma is immunotherapy with antibodies (i.e. ipilimumab and nivolumab), …
- Study level
- PhD
- Faculty
- Faculty of Health
- School
- School of Biomedical Sciences
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