Development of environmentally-friendly bioinsecticides for control of Australian crop pests. Insect pests cause over $3 billion of damage each year to Australian crops. Current insecticides are becoming less effective, and they often have adverse environmental impacts. This project aims to develop a new generation of environmentally-friendly insecticides that can be used to control insect pests on farms and around the home and garden.
Industrial Transformation Training Centres - Grant ID: IC160100025
Funder
Australian Research Council
Funding Amount
$2,259,000.00
Summary
ARC Training Centre in Food Safety in the Fresh Produce Industry. ARC Training Centre in Food Safety in the Fresh Produce Industry. This centre aims to create an innovation platform of food safety researchers and industry personnel who can significantly advance the safety of fruit and vegetables in Australia. The intended outcomes are safer food, leading to enhanced health and wellbeing; industry growth in the food/agribusiness sector; enhanced trust and international reputation; and increased a ....ARC Training Centre in Food Safety in the Fresh Produce Industry. ARC Training Centre in Food Safety in the Fresh Produce Industry. This centre aims to create an innovation platform of food safety researchers and industry personnel who can significantly advance the safety of fruit and vegetables in Australia. The intended outcomes are safer food, leading to enhanced health and wellbeing; industry growth in the food/agribusiness sector; enhanced trust and international reputation; and increased access to growing export markets. Intended benefits to industry are ready-to-use technologies for strengthened food safety, and a new generation of highly-skilled food safety scientists with experience in conducting industry-focused research.Read moreRead less
Linkage Infrastructure, Equipment And Facilities - Grant ID: LE130100040
Funder
Australian Research Council
Funding Amount
$450,000.00
Summary
Integrated Greenhouse Gas Measurement System (IGMS) for monitoring agricultural emissions at field to regional scales. Measurement of greenhouse gases is critical to Australia’s obligations to reduce carbon emissions. The measurement facility will provide urgently needed accurate emission data from Australian agriculture to establish emission baselines and develop methods to extend the point-scale measurements to whole farm, regional and national scales.
Development of Novel Pesticidal Agents. We have discovered a family of naturally occurring plant proteins called the cyclotides that have potent insecticidal activity against Helicoverpa species, one of the major pests on cotton and corn in Australia and world wide. Preliminary evidence has shown that they also have activity against major pests to livestock in Australia, including sheep blowflies. To develop these proteins as potential pesticidal agents it is necessary to understand the struct ....Development of Novel Pesticidal Agents. We have discovered a family of naturally occurring plant proteins called the cyclotides that have potent insecticidal activity against Helicoverpa species, one of the major pests on cotton and corn in Australia and world wide. Preliminary evidence has shown that they also have activity against major pests to livestock in Australia, including sheep blowflies. To develop these proteins as potential pesticidal agents it is necessary to understand the structural basis for their activity. We will do this by chemically synthesising peptides with selected residues mutated to determine their effects on activity.Read moreRead less
Chemically re-engineering bioactive natural products using fragment based drug design. Current drug and agrichemical discovery technologies are under immense pressure to meet the future pharmaceutical and agriculture demand created by population growth. This project will develop a novel technology concept that re-engineers the chemical features of bioactive natural products optimising medicine and agrichemical discovery.
Understanding the koala microbiome: unlocking the secrets of koala health and dietary specialisation, and successful husbandry and translocation. This project aims to discover how the composition and function of koala gastrointestinal microbial communities differ in space and time in response to the varying nutritional quality and chemical composition of koala diets. Using detailed chemical analysis, cutting edge metagenomic and bioinformatic pipelines and powerful approaches to study enzyme fun ....Understanding the koala microbiome: unlocking the secrets of koala health and dietary specialisation, and successful husbandry and translocation. This project aims to discover how the composition and function of koala gastrointestinal microbial communities differ in space and time in response to the varying nutritional quality and chemical composition of koala diets. Using detailed chemical analysis, cutting edge metagenomic and bioinformatic pipelines and powerful approaches to study enzyme functions in the koala’s gut, the investigators aims to reveal the role of microbes in detoxification of plant toxins and degradation of recalcitrant fibre fractions. The outcomes aim to facilitate the use of faecal transplants to improve digestive function for translocated and rehabilitated koalas, enhancing options for koala management and conservation.Read moreRead less
ARC Centre of Excellence for Translational Photosynthesis. The ARC Centre of Excellence for Translational Photosynthesis seeks to develop and harness advances in photosynthesis research, crop bioengineering, plant phenomics and computational tools to realise increased and sustainable crop yields, opening new routes to achieving the next revolution in plant productivity. It will deliver improved yield by undertaking a continuum of fundamental and applied photosynthesis research and targeting proj ....ARC Centre of Excellence for Translational Photosynthesis. The ARC Centre of Excellence for Translational Photosynthesis seeks to develop and harness advances in photosynthesis research, crop bioengineering, plant phenomics and computational tools to realise increased and sustainable crop yields, opening new routes to achieving the next revolution in plant productivity. It will deliver improved yield by undertaking a continuum of fundamental and applied photosynthesis research and targeting projects with a high probability of producing increased yield. Links with national and international institutions, consortia and breeding companies will enhance the prospects of translating genetic improvements into crops such as wheat, rice and sorghum for improved yield.Read moreRead less
Linkage Infrastructure, Equipment And Facilities - Grant ID: LE100100211
Funder
Australian Research Council
Funding Amount
$650,000.00
Summary
The Big Australian Speech Corpus: An audio-visual speech corpus of Australian English. Contemporary speech science and technology are driven by the availability of large speech corpora. While audio databases exist for languages spoken in America, Europe and Japan, there is currently no large auditory-visual database of spoken language, and certainly not one for Australian English. Here we will establish the Big Australian Speech Corpus, which will support a speech science research and developmen ....The Big Australian Speech Corpus: An audio-visual speech corpus of Australian English. Contemporary speech science and technology are driven by the availability of large speech corpora. While audio databases exist for languages spoken in America, Europe and Japan, there is currently no large auditory-visual database of spoken language, and certainly not one for Australian English. Here we will establish the Big Australian Speech Corpus, which will support a speech science research and development using Australian English and facilitate the development of Australian speech technology applications from automatic speech recognition and text-to-speech synthesis used in taxi and other ordering services, to hearing prostheses and talking head aids for learning-impaired children, and a range of security and forensic applications.Read moreRead less
Enabling Molecular Plant Breeding for Drought Adaptation Using Genome-to-Phenome Modelling Technologies. Effective molecular plant breeding for improved water productivity of sorghum would generate significant economic and social benefits for rural communities in NE Australia. There is a significant opportunity to expand the sorghum industry in the region. Despite the global financial crisis, global demand for meat continues to increase, generating strong demand from intensive livestock industri ....Enabling Molecular Plant Breeding for Drought Adaptation Using Genome-to-Phenome Modelling Technologies. Effective molecular plant breeding for improved water productivity of sorghum would generate significant economic and social benefits for rural communities in NE Australia. There is a significant opportunity to expand the sorghum industry in the region. Despite the global financial crisis, global demand for meat continues to increase, generating strong demand from intensive livestock industries for feed grain. Price is projected to return to high levels given continuing use of major feed grains for biofuel. A 10% increase in sorghum production would add net value of $48M annually, much via employment. The scientific content of this project positions Australia at the leading edge globally in this emerging research field. Read moreRead less
ARC Centre of Excellence for Robotic Vision. Robots are vital to Australia's future prosperity in the face of high relative wages, low or decreasing productivity, and impending labour shortages. However the work and workplaces of our most important industries are unstructured and changeable and current robots are challenged by their inability to quickly, safely and reliably "see" and "understand" what is around them. The Centre's research will create the fundamental science and technologies th ....ARC Centre of Excellence for Robotic Vision. Robots are vital to Australia's future prosperity in the face of high relative wages, low or decreasing productivity, and impending labour shortages. However the work and workplaces of our most important industries are unstructured and changeable and current robots are challenged by their inability to quickly, safely and reliably "see" and "understand" what is around them. The Centre's research will create the fundamental science and technologies that will allow robots to see as we do, and overcome the last barrier to the ubiquitous deployment of robots into society for the benefit of all.Read moreRead less