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 661 matching student topics
Displaying 433–444 of 661 results
Therapeutic opportunities targeting epigenetic-metabolism crosswalks in cancer
Epigenetic and metabolic pathways in cancer cells are highly interconnected. Epigenetic landscape in cancer cells is modified by oncogene-driven metabolic changes. Metabolites modulate the activities of epigenetic modifying enzymes to regulate the expression of specific genes. Conversely, epigenetic deregulation that occurs in cancer affect the expression of metabolic genes, thereby altering the metabolome. These changes all coordinately enhance cancer cell proliferation, metastasis and therapy resistance.The overall aim of the project is to understand the link between the activity of epigenetic …
- Study level
- Master of Philosophy, Honours
- Faculty
- Faculty of Health
- School
- School of Biomedical Sciences
Epigenetic regulation of non-coding RNAs in hypoxic tumours
In solid tumours, hypoxia occurs as a result of limitation on oxygen diffusion in avascular primary tumours or their metastases. Persistent hypoxia, significantly reduces the efficacy of radiation and chemotherapy and lead to poor outcomes. This is mainly due to increase in pro-survival genes that suppress apoptosis, enhance tumour angiogenesis, the epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition, invasiveness and metastasis. Much of tumour hypoxia research has been centred on examining the transcriptional targets of hypoxia inducible factors (HIFs).HypothesisEpigenetic changes mediate the effect of hypoxia …
- Study level
- Master of Philosophy, Honours
- Faculty
- Faculty of Health
- School
- School of Biomedical Sciences
Computational drug repurposing for neuropsychiatric disease
While hundreds of robust genetic associations have been found for neuropsychiatric disease (such as schizophrenia, major depression, and anxiety) understanding the exact molecular mechanisms leading to disease onset and progression remains challenging. Inherited (i.e. genetic) risk factors for many neuropsychiatric diseases converge on genes that are co-ordinately expressed (co-expressed) in a disease-relevant tissue (e.g. brain). The study of how genetic risk factors affect co-expressed genes (i.e. gene co-expression analysis) has the potential to uncover new biological processes underlying disease onset. …
- Study level
- Honours
- Faculty
- Faculty of Health
- School
- School of Biomedical Sciences
Investigating immunosuppression downstream of activated FGFR2 in endometrial cancer
FGFR2 encodes two alternatively spliced isoforms that differ in their ligand binding domain and the combination of tissue specific expression of these isoforms and tissue specific expression of the FGF ligands is the foundation of normal paracrine signalling. Isoform switching from FGFR2b (inclusion of exon 8) to FGFR2c (inclusion of exon 9) occurs in tumorigenesis as it establishes an autocrine loop in epithelial cancer cells. Our lab has reported that FGFR2 activation by mutations or isoform switching is associated with …
- Study level
- PhD
- Faculty
- Faculty of Health
- School
- School of Biomedical Sciences
Participatory Visualisation of Smart City Data
This PhD project will be affiliated with FrontierSI and Value Australia and contribute to its goals and objectives around smart cities, digital twins, and automated land valuations. Although consumers contribute much of the data upon which these smart city technologies operate, its systems often remain opaque black boxes closed off to public understanding, scrutiny and control. There are also serious concerns around privacy and loss of autonomy.This PhD project addresses these issues by exploring new methods for the participatory visualisation …
- Study level
- PhD
- Faculty
- Faculty of Creative Industries, Education and Social Justice
- School
- School of Design
- Research centre(s)
-
Design Lab
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
Can virus-based defective interfering particles (DIPS) be used to treat dengue infection?
Infection by dengue virus causes incapacitating and potentially dangerous acute disease in humans. Dengue is a mosquito-borne infectious disease with about 100 million serious clinical infections annually. Considerable effort in drug development is underway, but no effective drug therapy is available. A major difficulty for drug development is the rapid evolution of RNA viruses, like dengue virus, which presents a major challenge for controlling virus transmission and infection using conventional pharmaceuticals and vaccines.This project is based on the observation that …
- Study level
- Master of Philosophy
- Faculty
- Faculty of Health
- School
- School of Biomedical Sciences
Human data interaction with big data visual analytics
Our research is seeking to answer the question: 'How can we support human interaction with big data?'We want to integrate the outstanding capabilities of humans in terms of visual information exploration with the enormous processing power of computers. These elements have the capacity to form a powerful knowledge discovery environment. This research will use datasets from the Queensland Government and the QUT Ecoacoustic research group over multiple years. Other big datasets, such as Amazon’s product review dataset, could also be …
- Study level
- PhD, Master of Philosophy, Honours
- Faculty
- Faculty of Science
- School
- School of Computer Science
A novel diagnostic test for lung transplant rejection – circulating cell-free methylated DNA
Lung transplantation is a complex medical procedure for those with advanced lung disease. Average survival following lung transplantation is shorter than for any other solid organ. The median survival time of a lung transplant recipient is only 8 years due to a high incidence (over 75% at 10 years) of chronic rejection (also called chronic lung allograft dysfunction – CLAD). The clinical course of CLAD is progressive with irreversible lung injury that ultimately leads to lung failure. The median survival …
- Study level
- PhD
- Faculty
- Faculty of Health
- School
- School of Biomedical Sciences
- Research centre(s)
- Centre for Genomics and Personalised Health
Control of concentrating solar thermal power plants
Concentrating solar power (CSP) is a technology that utilises mirrors (heliostats) to focus the sun’s rays on a solar receiver. This provides heat for a power generation cycle, creating thermal energy.Control of the heat transfer fluid temperature in the solar receiver is crucial for the efficient use/storage of thermal energy and to minimise the degradation of the receiver. The aim of this project is to design controllers for the heat transfer fluid pumps and the heliostats using a previously developed model of the receiver's thermodynamics.
- Study level
- Honours
- Faculty
- Faculty of Engineering
- School
- School of Mechanical, Medical and Process Engineering
Using agricultural waste and organic amendments for sustainable agriculture and soil health
Optimising the application rates of organic amendments in agricultural soils is one of the most promising and practical solutions to reduce nitrogen (N) losses into the environment while maintaining an economically-adequate crop production.Organic amendments alone often don't meet the crop's needs. Consequently, a supplementary application of N synthetic fertiliser is needed in conventional farming systems to meet perceived production needs.Accounting for the amount of plant-available N (PAN) released by organic amendments and combining this with N-fertiliser will:ensure N demands of …
- Study level
- PhD, Master of Philosophy, Honours
- Faculty
- Faculty of Science
- School
- School of Biology and Environmental Science
- Research centre(s)
- Centre for Agriculture and the Bioeconomy
Immigrant entrepreneurship
Immigrants start their own business either out of necessity or opportunity. They engage in all different types of business activities, ranging form the small business inside the ethnic enclaves to the multinational enterprises across the globe.We are interested in new insights you can bring from your own research, business or community background. Please pitch your idea to us for the opportunity to create new knowledge together.
- Study level
- PhD, Master of Philosophy, Honours
- Faculty
- Faculty of Business and Law
- School
- School of Management
- Research centre(s)
- Centre for Future Enterprise
Australian Centre for Entrepreneurship Research
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