QUT researchers have been successful in securing six National Industry PhD Program awards.
They are:
Associate Professor Brett Williams, Dr Julia Bally and PhD candidate Jordan Gemmell from QUT's School of Biology and Environmental Science, with partner Invertigro for the project Manipulation of Stress Response Pathways to Enhance Crop Yield.
Professor Williams said the PhD project aimed to revolutionise protected cropping (horticulture under shelter) by enhancing photosynthesis, light-use efficiency, yield and shelf life in tomato seedlings through controlled stress responses.
"Climate change's increasing frequency of drought and floods calls for climate-resilient agricultural systems, such as protected cropping, but its higher infrastructure and staffing costs limit its viability compared to broad-acre cropping in Australia.
"By improving crop performance through moderate stress pre-treatment, we could transform horticultural practices and enable producers to maximise their yields and contribute to sustainable food production."
The project will contribute to ensuring the continued growth and resilience of Australia's horticultural sector and food supply.
Professor Zhiyong Li, from QUT's School of Mechanical, Medical and Process Engineering, with industry partner Acacia Ridge Medical Centre will supervise the PhD project Fluid dynamics of heart valves and their replacements.
Professor Li said mitral and tricuspid valve disease was a leading cause of heart failure but current treatments have significant challenges, particularly for tricuspid interventions, which lag in minimally invasive solutions.
"Existing evaluation methods for prosthetic heart valves often lack the precision, flexibility, and physiological fidelity required to optimise designs before clinical use," Professor Li said.
"The project aims to develop an integrated experimental-computational simulator capable of replicating realistic haemodynamics under both normal and pathological conditions."
Professor Li said the platform would set a new standard for testing and improving cardiovascular devices.
"Dr Tuquabo Tesfamichael, from QUT's School of Mechanical, Medical and Process Engineering (MMPE), with PhD candidates Robert Jackson and Cameron Edward from industry partner PWR Performance Products will undertake two related PhD projects, both titled, Advanced Simulation Techniques for Optimizing Thermohydraulic Performance in Heat Exchangers, under the program.
Dr Tesfamichael said Australia's heat exchanger market was projected to reach $881 million by 2030 and to maintain our national and international leadership in this market further technological improvements in design and material selection were needed to reduce costs and lift performance.
He said QUT and PWR had a history of collaboration that would provide a solid foundation for expanding the working relationship and increasing the scale and scope of collaborative projects.
"One of the projects aims to develop accurate and efficient models to predict the performance of heat exchangers to enable improved designs that cut emissions and support sustainable manufacturing in Australia."
"The other project will improve heat exchangers for cooling systems in transport and energy through enhanced design and material selection and aims to reduce manufacturing cost, boost performance and support Australian manufacturing", Dr Tesfamichael said.
Dr Tesfamichael said these new methods would enable identification of precisely tuned geometries for specific applications and manufacture of more efficient, cost-effective, durable and reliable heat exchangers.
Dr Adi Idris, from QUT's School of Biomedical Sciences, with PhD candidate Muskan Muskan and industry partner Gene Company, will undertake the project, Developing extracellular vesicle-based RNA therapeutics for targeting Human T cell Leukaemia Virus type 1 (HTLV-1): A solution for suppressing HTLV-1.
Dr Idris said there was no vaccine, cure or antiviral treatment for HTVL-1 driven disease, which is estimated to infect more than 20 million people worldwide, and is endemic in remote Indigenous communities in Australia.
"Our project aims to directly target HTVL-1 virus which preferentially infects a group of white blood cells of the immune system called T cells and leads to an aggressive blood cancer called adult T-cell leukaemia," Dr Idris said.
"We have generated a new cell-derived, nanoparticle platform called extracellular vesicles to deliver antiviral RNA-based therapy with high specificity for infected T cells."
Dr Idris said the project's outcome would be an innovative antiviral drug using RNA silencing technology and which could be the first therapeutic to treat global HTLV-1 infections.
Professor Sara Couperthwaite, from QUT's School of Mechanical, Medical and Process Engineering, and PhD candidate Ruairi O'Kane with industry partner Lava Blue will undertake the research project, Unlocking critical minerals from mine wastes.
Professor Couperthwaite said a significant proportion of Australia's critical minerals were locked up in obstinate aluminosilicate minerals in mine wastes and tailings that cannot be extracted by traditional methods.
"Critical minerals are in high demand for renewable technologies, such as batteries, solar cells, and electric vehicles, but present considerable challenges in sustainable sourcing and processing methods," Professor Couperthwaite said.
"This project will unlock new supply lines of critical minerals through secondary prospecting of mine wastes using novel phosphoric acid processing methods that are highly selective to breaking down aluminosilicate structures."
This research will provide fundamental information on chemical mechanisms and engineering designs that will unlock the critical mineral potential in mine wastes and tailings.
Image: Top row, from left: Associate Professor Brett Williams, Dr Julia Bally, Professor Zhiyong Li. Bottom row, from left: Dr Tuquabo Tesfamichael, Dr Adi Idris, Professor Sara Couperthwaite
