Discovery Early Career Researcher Award - Grant ID: DE210100440
Funder
Australian Research Council
Funding Amount
$419,693.00
Summary
A novel approach in crowd evacuation planning: Behavioural intervention. The ability to rapidly and safely evacuate crowds can mean the difference between death and survival in mass emergencies. While the immediate reaction of the public to an emergency is paramount for their survival, their role in crisis management is often not fully harnessed. This project establishes an innovative and pragmatic approach in urban emergency planning: optimising evacuations through behavioural training. Pioneer ....A novel approach in crowd evacuation planning: Behavioural intervention. The ability to rapidly and safely evacuate crowds can mean the difference between death and survival in mass emergencies. While the immediate reaction of the public to an emergency is paramount for their survival, their role in crisis management is often not fully harnessed. This project establishes an innovative and pragmatic approach in urban emergency planning: optimising evacuations through behavioural training. Pioneering empirical steps will be taken to discover optimum strategies that individual crowd members should adopt, and to establish the extent to which modifying crowd response can be effective. The outcomes will result in educational guides that will increase public awareness and community preparedness for public emergencies.Read moreRead less
The Molecular Basis of Nanoparticle Resistance in Mixed-Species Biofilm. The project aims to understand how the globally significant mixed-species growth of pathogens develop resistance to silver nanoparticle, currently one of the most important alternative antimicrobials to antibiotics. The integrated research is to elucidate, for the first time, the nanoparticle multi-targeting toxicity on mixed-species bacterial community and how, in turn, the bacteria activate their cell-to-cell signalling f ....The Molecular Basis of Nanoparticle Resistance in Mixed-Species Biofilm. The project aims to understand how the globally significant mixed-species growth of pathogens develop resistance to silver nanoparticle, currently one of the most important alternative antimicrobials to antibiotics. The integrated research is to elucidate, for the first time, the nanoparticle multi-targeting toxicity on mixed-species bacterial community and how, in turn, the bacteria activate their cell-to-cell signalling for a synergistic defence to adapt to the nanoparticle toxicity. The pioneering knowledge is the foundation for technologies targeting the interspecies metabolite cross-talking to overcome the resistance phenomena, ensuring a long-term efficacy of the alternative antimicrobial on the difficult-to-control pathogenic growth.Read moreRead less
Reducing health disparities for culturally and linguistically diverse peoples. This project aims to develop a greater understanding of migrants and the factors that predict poor health outcomes related to blood-borne viruses and sexually transmitted infections. The delayed access by migrants to healthcare from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds results in late diagnosis, low treatment uptake, and poorer health outcomes, with enhanced risk of infection and increased burden on the h ....Reducing health disparities for culturally and linguistically diverse peoples. This project aims to develop a greater understanding of migrants and the factors that predict poor health outcomes related to blood-borne viruses and sexually transmitted infections. The delayed access by migrants to healthcare from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds results in late diagnosis, low treatment uptake, and poorer health outcomes, with enhanced risk of infection and increased burden on the health system. The data collected in this project will assist in developing health services to meet these needs.Read moreRead less
Discovery Early Career Researcher Award - Grant ID: DE200100977
Funder
Australian Research Council
Funding Amount
$419,016.00
Summary
How ecology shapes the viromes of wild birds. This project will reveal the host factors associated with the diversity, evolution and dynamics of viruses using state-of-the-art metatranscriptomics in Australian wild birds. The structure of virus communities and their associated ecological drivers in wild animal hosts remain a black-box, even though they are the largest source of viral diversity in nature. This project expects to generate key insights into host-associated drivers of viral communit ....How ecology shapes the viromes of wild birds. This project will reveal the host factors associated with the diversity, evolution and dynamics of viruses using state-of-the-art metatranscriptomics in Australian wild birds. The structure of virus communities and their associated ecological drivers in wild animal hosts remain a black-box, even though they are the largest source of viral diversity in nature. This project expects to generate key insights into host-associated drivers of viral community dynamics and the subsequent effect of anthropogenic factors such as urbanisation and poultry production. Identifying host factors that affect viral ecology in wild birds will constitute a cornerstone in understanding the emergence of virulent viruses and/or their spread to poultry or humansRead moreRead less
Sustainable Australian food production within secure global supply chains. This project aims at exploring future pathways for the Australian food system to remain secure under future disruptive changes, environmentally and socially sustainable, and able to offer healthy food choices. It will reveal the connections among food supply chains, diets and human health, and portray a food system that achieves public health and sustainability goals while positioning Australia securely into the global su ....Sustainable Australian food production within secure global supply chains. This project aims at exploring future pathways for the Australian food system to remain secure under future disruptive changes, environmentally and socially sustainable, and able to offer healthy food choices. It will reveal the connections among food supply chains, diets and human health, and portray a food system that achieves public health and sustainability goals while positioning Australia securely into the global supply chain network. These goals will be achieved by creating the Australian Food Lab, which will provide a collaborative research platform for environmental scientists, economists, public health experts, and food industry representatives for investigating issues pertaining to the future of our food system.Read moreRead less
Australian Laureate Fellowships - Grant ID: FL170100022
Funder
Australian Research Council
Funding Amount
$3,402,903.00
Summary
Redefining virus ecology and evolution. This project aims to employ novel genomic analyses of viruses from Australian fauna to resolve major questions in RNA virus ecology and evolution, and is expected to reveal the basic processes that shape the virosphere, determine how viruses jump species to emerge and cause disease in new hosts, and how viruses evolve new levels of virulence. The research will provide a new understanding of how viruses evolve and contribute to global ecosystems and develop ....Redefining virus ecology and evolution. This project aims to employ novel genomic analyses of viruses from Australian fauna to resolve major questions in RNA virus ecology and evolution, and is expected to reveal the basic processes that shape the virosphere, determine how viruses jump species to emerge and cause disease in new hosts, and how viruses evolve new levels of virulence. The research will provide a new understanding of how viruses evolve and contribute to global ecosystems and develop new bioinformatics tools to identify and analyse highly divergent genome sequences through studying meta-transcriptomic data from diverse animal phyla, from prokaryotes and basal eukaryotes, from iconic native mammalian species and their major invasive pests. The benefits provided will include determining the viromes of native and invasive species and enhancing the efforts to protect iconic Australian species from infectious disease.Read moreRead less
Nuclear and chromatin architecture in the replication stress response. DNA replication is an essential biological activity required for the transmittance of genomic material across cell divisions. If errors occur during DNA replication, this results in dangerous outcomes including mutation, genome instability, and cell death. Cells cope with challenges to DNA replication through a process called the replication stress response. This fellowship explores a newly discovered pathway in the replicati ....Nuclear and chromatin architecture in the replication stress response. DNA replication is an essential biological activity required for the transmittance of genomic material across cell divisions. If errors occur during DNA replication, this results in dangerous outcomes including mutation, genome instability, and cell death. Cells cope with challenges to DNA replication through a process called the replication stress response. This fellowship explores a newly discovered pathway in the replication stress response where changes to the architecture of a cell nucleus, and movement of the genomic material inside, promotes repair of genomic damage that occurs during replication. The result of this project will be an understanding of fundamental biological processes that protect human genomes.Read moreRead less
How do cells survive nutrient stress? Insight into mechanisms. This project studies cell survival under nutrient stress in eukaryotes. Building on extensive preliminary data that identifies novel TOR (Target of Rapamycin) Complex 2 (TORC2) control points it expects to generate new knowledge of critical and conserved features of stress control of macroautophagy that ensures cell survival. It uses interdisciplinary and innovative approaches to validate and characterize nutrient-stress dependent si ....How do cells survive nutrient stress? Insight into mechanisms. This project studies cell survival under nutrient stress in eukaryotes. Building on extensive preliminary data that identifies novel TOR (Target of Rapamycin) Complex 2 (TORC2) control points it expects to generate new knowledge of critical and conserved features of stress control of macroautophagy that ensures cell survival. It uses interdisciplinary and innovative approaches to validate and characterize nutrient-stress dependent signaling. Expected outcomes include novel insights into environmental control of cell proliferation and forging cross institutional collaborations. This knowledge benefits basic and applied biology and is relevant to industries/projects utilizing living cells as nutrient supports cell survival and proliferation.Read moreRead less
Discovery Early Career Researcher Award - Grant ID: DE210100494
Funder
Australian Research Council
Funding Amount
$455,333.00
Summary
A novel electronic nose to locate victims of mass disaster events . The risk of global mass disaster events is increasing due to climate change and acts of terrorism. The most critical action following these events is locating victims. This proposal aims to develop an electronic nose capable of locating living and deceased victims by targeting volatile chemical components emitted from the human body. This project expects to overcome current limitations of current detection methods (e.g. cost, li ....A novel electronic nose to locate victims of mass disaster events . The risk of global mass disaster events is increasing due to climate change and acts of terrorism. The most critical action following these events is locating victims. This proposal aims to develop an electronic nose capable of locating living and deceased victims by targeting volatile chemical components emitted from the human body. This project expects to overcome current limitations of current detection methods (e.g. cost, limited operational time, deployment constraints in hazardous scenarios). The expected project outcomes include the development of innovative techniques that will improve mass disaster recovery on a global scale and provide significant benefit to human welfare. Read moreRead less
Navigating flux control through a branched metabolic pathway. This project aims to uncover control points and programmes in the mevalonate pathway, an important cellular metabolic pathway that produces cholesterol and isoprenoids. Knowledge of its regulation is largely restricted to just one enzyme (HMGCR). This project will determine how regulation of the later sterol-producing segment affects the early isoprenoid-segment of the mevalonate pathway; investigate how the two alternate routes to ch ....Navigating flux control through a branched metabolic pathway. This project aims to uncover control points and programmes in the mevalonate pathway, an important cellular metabolic pathway that produces cholesterol and isoprenoids. Knowledge of its regulation is largely restricted to just one enzyme (HMGCR). This project will determine how regulation of the later sterol-producing segment affects the early isoprenoid-segment of the mevalonate pathway; investigate how the two alternate routes to cholesterol synthesis operate and are regulated; and explore a co-ordinated and possibly co-operative transcriptional program. This project is expected to provide valuable knowledge of how cells control these critical lipids, which will ultimately inform better ways to treat diseases of cholesterol excess and defects in this pathway.Read moreRead less