Faculty of Health 3

Doctor of Philosophy

BUTNORIS, Marguerite Rose

Thesis Title

How Do We Support the Development of an Advancing Scope of Practice for Pharmacy Technicians in Australia?

Supervisors

• Adjunct Professor Lisa Monique Nissen (Principal Supervisor)
• Dr Judith Ann Singleton (Associate Supervisor)

Citation

The pharmacy workforce and resulting models of service delivery are adapting to current and future health needs. Consequently, traditional workforce roles of pharmacy technicians can be redesigned to better align skill levels with task complexity, and to improve patient outcomes. In Australia, despite their emergence as a growing part of the clinical pharmacy workforce, the definition of a pharmacy technician is complex, and scope remains largely undefined. The purpose of this thesis is to better understand the role, scope of pharmacy technician practice and provide future direction on how best to support the advanced-scope of practice of Australian pharmacy technicians.

CARLTON, Morgan Madeline

Thesis Title

Saliva Biomarkers for Physical Healing and Psychological Wellbeing in Paediatric Small Area Thermal Burns

Supervisors

• Associate Professor Leila Cuttle (Principal Supervisor)
• Associate Professor Anthony James Parker (Associate Supervisor)
• Adjunct Professor Chamindie Kusalini Punyadeera (Associate Supervisor)
• Dr Joanne Voisey (Associate Supervisor)

Citation

This thesis is the first study to catalogue the proteins in the saliva of children with small area thermal burns and investigate changes in saliva protein and cytokine levels in relation to different burn characteristics and clinical outcomes. It identifies proteins that may be influenced by burn injury and discusses the future studies that are required before saliva can be used as a diagnostic tool in paediatric burn assessment.

EDWARDS, Christopher Robert

Thesis Title

Understanding the Reliability and Consistency of Ultrasound Derived Elastography Measures of the Human Placenta

Supervisors

• Associate Professor Davide Fontanarosa (Principal Supervisor)
• Adjunct Professor Sailesh Kumar (External Supervisor)
• Dr Marie-Luise Wille (Associate Supervisor)

Citation

This thesis examined the physical, biological, and technological factors influencing the biomechanical properties of human placental tissue in utero. It specifically investigated changes in placental stiffness, measured via ultrasound elastography throughout the third trimester. The thesis analysed the critical maternal and fetal factors that impact ultrasound elastography measures and reported on system parameters that can be optimised for reliable results. Knowledge gained in this thesis is essential to developing placental elastography as a clinical tool to diagnose placental dysfunction.

EKANAYAKE WEERAMANGE, Sasee Chameera

Thesis Title

Salivary Genetic and Epigenetic Biomarkers for Human Papillomavirus Driven Head and Neck Cancers

Supervisors

• Dr Lizbeth Moira Kenny (External Supervisor)
• Dr Julian Langton-Lockton (External Supervisor)
• Adjunct Professor Chamindie Kusalini Punyadeera (Principal Supervisor)
• Dr Kai Dun Tang (Associate Supervisor)

Citation

Despite this rising incidence of Human papillomavirus (HPV) driven head and neck cancer (HNC) biomarkers for early detection and patient management are lacking. Considering the proximity between saliva and HNCs, this study explores salivary biomarkers for HPV-driven HNC and demonstrates that salivary HPV DNA, HPV DNA methylation, and microRNA can be used for early detection, prognostication, and monitoring of HPV-driven HNC. Furthermore, this study reveals that human leukocyte antigen gene polymorphism is linked with HPV-driven HNC risk. In summary, this study emphasizes that these liquid biopsy-based, non-invasive biomarkers can play an essential role in detection, and management of HPV-driven HNC.

GHAFFAR, Ammarah

Thesis Title

Identifying and Understanding the Molecular Mechanisms of Migraine via Functional Interpretation of Genome-Wide Association study (GWAS) Data

Supervisors

• Associate Professor Divya Deepak Mehta (Associate Supervisor)
• Professor Dale Robert Nyholt (Principal Supervisor)

Citation

Migraine is the most common brain disorder, affecting almost 14% of the adult population, yet its molecular mechanisms and pathogenic tissue(s) remain unclear. In this thesis, I have developed a novel approach that uses genome-wide association study (GWAS) summary statistics and expression quantitative trait loci (eQTL) data to impute genetically regulated tissue-specific gene expression and prioritise disease-relevant pathogenic tissues. In subsequent studies, I compared three transcriptome imputation models to characterise genome-wide significant migraine GWAS risk loci and identified 14 novel migraine risk loci that were confirmed to be true risk loci in a recent larger migraine GWAS.

JADHAO, Sudhir Shriram

Thesis Title

Integrated Bioinformatics Prototype to Improve Blood Type Compatibility Testing

Supervisors

• Adjunct Professor Robert Lewis Powell Flower (Associate Supervisor)
• Associate Professor Shivashankar Hiriyur Nagaraj (Principal Supervisor)
• Dr Natalie Maria Pecheniuk (Associate Supervisor)
• Professor Derek John Richard (Mentoring Supervisor)

Citation

Blood transfusion is an essential cornerstone of haematological care, patients requiring repetitive transfusion remain at persistent risk of alloimmunisation due to the human blood group polymorphisms. The overall objective of the study was to provide a new basis for pre-transfusion testing by facilitating the accurate characterisation of an individual's complete blood group variant profile using NGS data of a large multi-ethnic cohort. To accomplish the objective, an automated bioinformatics platform was created to predict blood group antigen profiles and, using the platform, new polymorphisms of the blood group antigens in the Australian Caucasian descendent and Aboriginal Tiwi population were uncovered.

MONTEROSSO, Melissa Eileen

Thesis Title

The Microwell-mesh Platform: A multifaceted microtissue technology to link cell culture, animal models and patients

Supervisors

• Dr William Berry Lott (External Supervisor)
• Professor David John James Waugh (Principal Supervisor)
• Associate Professor Elizabeth Deborah Williams (Associate Supervisor)

Citation

Work towards effective translational medicine has revealed that current in vitro platforms are not sufficient to produce relevant clinical results. Advances in 3D technologies and preclinical models must be made to address the gaps lead to failure of initially promising therapies. The Microwell-mesh platform is a versatile device demonstrated to help bridge this gap. The device within the context of completed work was used to not only generate cancer xenograft models, crucial for successful personalized cancer therapeutics, but was also used to investigate the capacity of adult mesenchymal stem cells to regenerate bone and cartilage tissues within relevant biological environments.

MÜLLER BARK, Juliana

Thesis Title

The Use of Non-Invasive Biomarkers in the Management of Glioblastoma

Supervisors

• Dr Benjamin Chua (External Supervisor)
• Adjunct Professor Bryan Day (External Supervisor)
• Dr Paul James Leo (Associate Supervisor)
• Adjunct Professor Chamindie Kusalini Punyadeera (Principal Supervisor)

Citation

Glioblastoma is the most aggressive type of brain tumour in adults. Tissue biopsy is the gold standard technique to confirm glioblastoma diagnosis and obtain information about patients' prognoses. However, this approach is highly invasive. This thesis investigated minimally invasive alternatives to tissue biopsy. This work explored biomarkers found in blood and saliva of glioblastoma patients, namely circulating tumour cells, circulating tumour DNA, extracellular vesicles and metabolites, and their utility as prognostic biomarkers.

NILAGIRI, Vinay Kumar

Thesis Title

Subjective Measurement of the Stiles-Crawford Effect

Supervisors

• Professor David Andrew Atchison (Principal Supervisor)
• Dr Marwan Suheimat (Associate Supervisor)

Citation

The Stiles-Crawford effect (SCE) is the differential effectivity of light entering the eye at different positions in the pupil. Its parameters are directionality (rate of change across the pupil) and peak location in the pupil. Using a spatial light modulation system, I investigated influences of field size, accommodation (focusing), and flicker frequency on the subjectively-measured SCE. SCE directionality increased with increase in field size, while peak location shifted temporally in the pupil with increase in focusing, but the SCE was not affected by a range of flicker frequencies. The field size results support a photoreceptor absorption model of the SCE.

QUINCE, Zachery David

Thesis Title

Optical Coherence Elastography for the Measurement of Anterior Segment Biomechanical Properties

Supervisors

• Dr David Alonso Caneiro (Principal Supervisor)
• Professor Michael John Collins (Associate Supervisor)
• Professor Scott Andrew Read (Associate Supervisor)

Citation

This thesis developed a novel optical coherence elastography method to characterise tissue biomechanical properties in the anterior eye. The developed method applies a static force to deform the tissue and combines optical coherence tomography imaging with image processing to track the deformation and extract tissue mechanical properties. This project represents the first step towards developing a clinically viable method to comprehensively measure the mechanical properties of the anterior segment of the eye.

WATSON, Julia Renee

Thesis Title

Evaluation of Pain Using In Vivo Magnetic Resonance in a Clinical Scanner

Supervisors

• Adjunct Professor Graham John Galloway (External Supervisor)
• Adjunct Professor Carolyn Mountford (Associate Supervisor)
• Professor Pamela Ann Rowntree (Principal Supervisor)

Citation

This thesis applied in vivo neuro 2D-Localised COrrelated SpectroscopY to evaluate the neurochemistry of the heathy human brain and documented the effect on the brain of acute and chronic pain. Multiple neurochemical differences were recorded as consequence of gender. Acute pain at onset, and over time, affected the neurochemistry longer than self-reported pain. Monitoring the response of a patient to successful treatment, the time for the brain to return to baseline, was again after the patient reported no pain. Applied to a chronic pain cohort, differences were recorded for both men and women, including the relatively newly assigned fucosylated glycans.

ZAHARI, Ilyanoon

Thesis Title

Effect of Chemotherapy on the Ocular Surface and Its Relationship to Peripheral Neuropathy

Supervisors

• Dr Ricardo Andrade (External Supervisor)
• Dr Catherine Patrice Edwards (Principal Supervisor)
• Associate Professor Katrina Leanne Schmid (Associate Supervisor)

Citation

As breast cancer survival rates improve, so do the number of women impacted by the side effects of anticancer agents. This project focused on two side effects of chemotherapy: peripheral neuropathy and ocular surface changes or dry eye. A prospective case control-study showed that women who undergone chemotherapy experienced more severe ocular surface symptoms, such as dry eye, up to 5 years post-treatment. Some of these ocular surface changes showed association with peripheral neuropathy, indicated by reduced small and large sensory nerve fibre function. Understanding these anticancer agents' long-term impact on the ocular surface will contribute to better patient management.