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 468 matching student topics
Displaying 133–144 of 468 results
Polymer theranostics for nanomedicine
The personalised treatment of disease though nanomedicine will allow for more effective and safer treatments for patients. Polymer theranostics provide for the simultaneous detection of disease, treatment, and monitoring of therapeutic response. Our research group synthesises new polymeric materials and investigates how they can be used in applications such as:potent antivirals to fight future pandemicsthe effect of radiation on materials for improved radiotherapy for cancerresponsive imaging agents that can report on metabolic processes of diseasecharacterizing the interaction of polymeric materials …
- Study level
- PhD, Master of Philosophy, Honours
- Faculty
- Faculty of Science
- School
- School of Chemistry and Physics
- Research centre(s)
- Centre for Materials Science
A mathematical model of disrupting cell-to-cell communication by bacteria
The emergence of resistance of bacteria to antibiotics presents a global healthcare challenge that intensifies the search for strategies to increase the effcacy of therapy. Several mechanisms are involved in resistance of bacteria against antibiotics such as mutations in genes, horizontal gene transfer, and biofilm formation. Bacteria can communicate with each other through production and response to local concentration of small molecules called autoinducers.This mechanism is called quorum sensing (QS).It has been suggested that QS can influence the resistance of …
- Study level
- PhD, Master of Philosophy, Honours
- Faculty
- Faculty of Science
- School
- School of Mathematical Sciences
- Research centre(s)
- Centre for Data Science
Basic aircraft collision risk modelling and visualisation
Aircraft collision risk modelling is complex yet key to ensuring safe air transport (both crewed and uncrewed aircraft). Different collision risk models are better suited to different airspace environments which means model comparison and evaluation is an important research problem. This project takes a deeper look into a specific collision risk modelling approach: gas models.
- Study level
- Honours
- Faculty
- Faculty of Engineering
- School
- School of Electrical Engineering and Robotics
- Research centre(s)
- Centre for Robotics
Physics-informed machine learning
Recent advances in computer vision have demonstrated superhuman performance on a variety of visual tasks including image classification, object detection, human pose estimation and human analysis. However, current approaches for achieving these results center around models that purely learn from large-scale datasets with highly complex neural network architectures. Despite the impressive performance, pure data-driven models usually lack robustness, interpretability, and adherence to physical constraints or commonsense reasoning.As in the real world, the visual world of computer vision is governed by …
- Study level
- PhD, Master of Philosophy, Honours
- Faculty
- Faculty of Engineering
- School
- School of Electrical Engineering and Robotics
New antimicrobial compounds with biofouling properties
Bacteria can readily adhere to the surface of synthetic materials and form a biofilm which is much more difficult to combat than circulating bacteria due to their extreme resistance to antibiotics. Thus, biofilms are of particular concern in the healthcare system, where they increase infection rates by contaminating medical devices, delay chronic wound healing and contribute to tooth decay. In systems used to transport water and oil, biofilms are associated with pipe blockages and corrosion which can result decreased efficiencies …
- Study level
- PhD, Master of Philosophy, Honours
- Faculty
- Faculty of Science
- School
- School of Chemistry and Physics
- Research centre(s)
- Centre for Materials Science
Design, derivation, and implementation of mesh-free finite volume solvers based on 3D unit cell morphology to estimate biomass particle effective parameters
The aim of this PhD project is to use lignocellulosic morphological features extracted from high resolution micro-CT images of biomass particles undergoing a dilute acid pretreatment process to perform computational homogenisation over representative unit cell configurations. Mesh-free finite volume solvers will be developed based on 3D point cloud data sets to estimate virtual biomass particle effective parameters, such as diffusivity, thermal conductivity, and permeability. The simulation results will be analysed to provide a fundamental understanding of the impact that changes …
- Study level
- PhD, Master of Philosophy, Honours
- Faculty
- Faculty of Science
- School
- School of Mathematical Sciences
Healthcare providers’ perspectives on wound care in aged care facilities
The ageing of the population in Australia, in line with other developed countries, is well documented, with the trend giving rise to an increase in incidence and prevalence of health conditions and complex health states for which age is a significant risk factor. As the skin ages, reduced moisture and loss of elasticity places the older person at increased risk of a variety of wounds such as skin tears and pressure injuries. In addition, the presence of multiple comorbid conditions …
- Study level
- Master of Philosophy
- Faculty
- Faculty of Health
- School
- School of Nursing
- Research centre(s)
- Centre for Healthcare Transformation
Development of high value products from mining waste resources
Mining represents one of the largest industry sectors in Australia. It is central to creating 1 million direct or indirect jobs and generates significant wealth to Australia. However, the mining industry produces a substantial amount of waste material which ideally needs to be recycled.
- Study level
- PhD, Master of Philosophy, Honours
- Faculty
- Faculty of Engineering
- School
- School of Mechanical, Medical and Process Engineering
Making seen what we can’t feel – wearable suns sensors for UV protection
Radiation exposure can be damaging, but at the right dose it can also have health benefits. An example, while ultraviolet (UV) light can cause skin damage and melanoma, it is also necessary for Vitamin D production. The key is knowing what dose we are receiving and when we have had too much. In this collaborative project with the School of Design, we are developing new wearable sun sensors that are sensitive to UV radiation, but also fashionable and desirable to …
- Study level
- Honours
- Faculty
- Faculty of Science
- School
- School of Chemistry and Physics
- Research centre(s)
- Centre for Materials Science
Microfluidic chip-based tumor-immune cancer models for biomarker discovery
In-vitro profiling of tumour-immune cell interactions in proximity can provide valuable insight into patient response to new combinatorial immunotherapies that are in the pipeline and currently being tested in clinical trials. These in-vitro models allow for a more controlled and isolated environment and provide a methodical approach for generating quantifiable data characterizing the interactions between target and effector cells. Traditionally executed in well-plates, tumour-immune models have been slowly moving towards a microfluidic chip-based approach for several reasons: better control over …
- 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
Reversing Epithelial Mesenchymal Plasticity with Eribulin to Enhance Therapy Response
Epithelial mesenchymal plasticity (EMP) is a highly regulated and powerful cellular process that is fundamental in embryonic development (1), which is hijacked by cancer cells for metastatic progression and therapy resistance in epithelial cancers (2). Eribulin is a microtubule-inhibiting cancer drug discovered in sea sponges and approved for 3rd line therapy in metastatic breast cancer, which was shown to reverse epithelial mesenchymal transition (EMT) (3).We hypothesise that eribulin’s reversal of EMT will sensitise breast cancer cells to other therapies and …
- Study level
- Master of Philosophy
- Faculty
- Faculty of Health
- School
- School of Biomedical Sciences
Robust feature selection and correspondence for visual control of robots
Stable correspondence-free image-based visual servoing is a challenging and important problem.In classical image-based visual controllers, explicit feature correspondence (matching) to some desired arrangement (configuration) is required before a control input is obtained. Instead, this project will investigate variable feature correspondence and robust feature selection to simultaneously solve visual servoing problem, removing any feature tracking requirement or additional image processing.Also involving Prof Jason Ford.Example of recent past work
- Study level
- PhD
- Faculty
- Faculty of Engineering
- School
- School of Electrical Engineering and Robotics
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