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Karnaker's research interests are natural products, peptide-based drug discovery and development, formulation chemistry and non-viral gene delivery system. Karnaker co-inventor and developed a novel, bioresponsive disulphide-linker technology, which has been used for non-viral vectors, peptide-therapeutics for pain and cancer treatment. Karnaker is also keen interest for topical, mucosal drug delivery using a range of dendrimer, nano and microbubbles, lipid and polymer-based nanoparticle systems in conjugation with both biological and physical stimuli-responsiveness.

Karnaker received a PhD in Pharmaceutical Chemistry from The University Queensland under the supervision of Dr Harendra Parekh and Dr Defang Ouyang. Prior to PhD, he completed a Master degree in Pharmaceutical Analysis and Quality assurance (India). Also worked as analytical research and development chemist for one year in a Pharma company. Since 2016, he his working with Dr Parekh team on a range of Industry-funded research projects and his role involves from ideation, research plan, execution, product delivery to industry partners on major platforms such as peptide-based therapeutics, gene therapy and sol-gel technology.

Mark is a Professor of food microbiology and serves as a Deputy Head of the School of Agriculture and Food Sustainability (since 2019) and as the current Lead of the Food Science & Technology Discipline in the school. He is also a Deputy Lead of the Innovative Ingredients program at the Food and Beverage Accelerator (FaBA), funded by the Australian Trailblazer university program scheme. He leads a research team focused on food safety, quality, and fermentation. After completing his PhD at Queensland University of Technology (QUT) under Prof Phil Giffard's supervision, he underwent postdoctoral training in Prof John Helmann's laboratory at Cornell University, USA (1999-2000), and at the CRC for Diagnostic Technologies, QUT (2000-01). He subsequently supported his position through a Dairy Australia Fellowship (2001-03) and an NHMRC New Investigator Grant (2004-06). In 2007, he joined UQ as an academic specialising in food microbiology.

Mark's research is currently funded by Agrifutures Australia, and he has received past funding from ARC Discovery, ARC Industrial Transformation Research Hub, ARC Industry Transformation Training Centre, and ARC Linkage schemes. He has also been supported by Horticulture Innovation (HIA), Dairy Innovation Australia Ltd (DIAL), and the Geoffrey Gardiner Dairy Foundation (GGDF). His research primarily focuses on lactic acid bacteria applications, plant-based dairy alternative fermentations, precision fermentation and biocontrol food applications targeting pathogens like Campylobacter and Listeria monocytogenes. He has successfully supervised 20 PhD and MPhil students to completion and currently supervises 3 postdoctoral research fellows and 2 PhD students.

Mark was the Director of the Master of Food Science & Technology program from 2008-2018. He contributes to teaching in food microbiology, food safety, and food biotechnology subjects at UQ. He is a Fellow of both the Australian Society for Microbiology (FASM) and the Australian Institute of Food Science and Technology (FAIFST), and serves on the editorial boards of mBio, the Journal of Food Protection, and Food Australia. He has received the 2017 Keith Farrer Award of Merit and the 2023 President's Award from the Australian Institute of Food Science and Technology (AIFST) for service to the food industry and the Institute. Additionally, Mark currently holds the position of President and Affiliate Council Delegate in the Australian Association for Food Protection (AAFP), the affiliate of the International Association for Food Protection (IAFP).

Dr Turni leads a national and international reference laboratory for respiratory bacterial pathogens where identification, serotyping, genotyping, sequencing and antimicrobial sensitivity testing is performed. Her team works with the poultry, pig and cattle industries, as well as major veterinary pharmaceutical companies around the world. The group performs vaccine efficacy trials, provides advice on vaccine strain selection, performs antimicrobial sensitivity testing and evaluates candidate novel antimicrobial agents. Essentially, the services provided by the group underpins the entire Australian prevention and control programs for the major bacterial respiratory diseases of pigs, poultry and cattle.

Her research has extended beyond vaccines and antibiotic sensitivity to determining optimal sample sites for collecting pathogens, understanding the association of different pathogens with disease, development of animal infection models, classification of bacteria and epidemiology of pathogens. Conny supervises PhD students with diverse projects such as antimicrobial sensitivity studies, risk factors and profiling of pathogenic Escherichia coli associated with avian collibacillosis, alternatives to antibiotics, development of on farm test for a virus and study of epidemiology of a new species of bacteria. She works in collaboration with a team of epidemiologist, veterinarian and virologist on projects in Australia and overseas.

Overview

Professor Waldemar Vollmer is a microbiologist working on the structure and biogenesis of the bacterial cell wall in various model bacteria and a range of pathogenic and environmental bacteria. He is particularly interested in how bacteria enlarge their cell wall when they grow and divide, and how antibiotics inhibit cell wall synthesis to kill bacteria. Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is a global problem that is predicted to claim 10 million lives annually by the year 2050 if no new antibiotics are developed. Currently the pipeline of antibiotic development is almost empty and mostly limited to slightly modified versions to existing antibiotics. Professor Vollmer addresses the problem of AMR by generating tailored assays for the development of novel antibiotics that target AMR bacteria.

Collaborations: Professor Vollmer collaborates world-wide with more than 50 researchers at top national and international institutions on cell wall topics in over 30 different bacteria. These topics include: structure and composition of the cell wall and its role in maintaining cell morphology; molecular mechanisms of cell envelope biogenesis; role of new cell wall modifying enzymes in the interaction of pathogenic bacteria with components of the immune system; mechanisms of antibiotic resistance and targeting of cell wall biogenesis by new antibiotics.

Funding and Publications: Professor Vollmer has been awarded more than $15 million funding from research councils and charities in Germany, UK, Europe and USA. He has published more than 200 articles in international journals and has been recognised as a Highly Cited Researcher in Microbiology.

Honours and Awards: Professor Vollmer has been elected to Fellow of the American Academy of Microbiology (2014) and European Academy of Microbiology (2018). He received the annual Academic Distinction Awards from the Vice Chancellor of Newcastle University (2014), has been awarded a Distinguished Scientist Visiting Scholarships at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (Israel, 2012) and a Visiting Professorship at the University of Cagliari (Italy, 2015), and won a Wellcome Trust Senior Investigator Award (2014). He has co-organised the 2018 Gordon Conference (GRC) "Bacterial Cell Surfaces" (Mt Snow, USA) and the 2016 EMBO Workshop "Bacterial Cell Division: Orchestrating the Ring Cycle" (Prague, Czech Republic).

Short Biography: Prof Waldemar Vollmer has studied chemistry at the University of Applied Sciences in Reutlingen (Germany) and University of Basel (Switzerland). In 1998 he obtained a PhD degree (Dr.rer.nat.) from the University of Tübingen (Germany) for his work on cell wall synthesis in the model bacterium Escherichia coli undertaken at the Max Planck Institute for Developmental Biology. During his postdoctoral studies at the Rockefeller University (New York, USA) he discovered novel cell wall enzymes that are crucial for the virulence of the pathogenic bacterium Streptococcus pneumoiae. In 2003 he was appointed Assistant Professor at the University of Tübingen and moved 2007 to the Centre for Bacterial Cell Biology at Newcastle University (UK), where he worked as Professor of Bacterial Biochemistry on various bacterial cell wall topics in a range of different bacteria. Since April 2023 he is Professorial Research Fellow and Group Leader at the Centre for Superbug Solutions, Institute for Molecular Bioscience (IMB) at the University of Queensland.

Andrew Ward is an ARC Industry Fellow at the Australian Centre for Water and Environmental Biotechnology (ACWEB), at The University of Queensland. He holds a PhD degree from the School of Chemical Engineering (The University of Adelaide) and his thesis focused on the optimisation of halophilic anaerobic digestion of algal biomass. At ACWEB projects he has worked on include Nutrient recovery via electrodialysis and Anammox for both domestic wastewater and agricultural wastewater treatment. He previously received an Advance Queensland Industry Research Fellowship to investigate the use of algae and bacterial aggregated flocs for the remediation of wastewater. Andrew has just received and ARC Industry Fellowship to investigate the use of microalgae and its role in energy and nutrient recovery from a circular economy perspective. Andrew has significant industrial experience working with large water utilities and industry partners scaling up research to pilot and demonstration scale. Andrew is currently lead investigator and manages Urban Utilities wastewater microalgae research program.

I have a multidisciplinary background in chemical and civil engineering, chemistry and materials science. Currently, I am the UQ leader of the National Centre for Timber Durability and Design Life, based at USC. I apply my expertise to understand the effects of fungal decay and moisture intrusion in timber connections, as well as the improvement of the fire performance of timber. I supervise 6 PhD students.

I have over 10 years of research and work experience in the field of mining land rehabilitation, acquiring a total of>3.5 million in fund support from the Australian government, research council and mining companies. My extensive experience in industrial engagement, field trial design and application also increased my growth as the leader in sustainable mining waste management.

I am an Advanced Queensland research fellow in the leading global research group of Ecological Engineering of Mine Wastes at the Sustainable Mineral Institute (SMI). My research interest is investigating important molecular and cellular processes in eukaryotes that first arose in bacteria and archaea, and microbial metabolic activities control numerous geochemical cycles in soil formation for sustainable mineral waste management. I have intensive work experience on multiple representative mining wastes, including Cu-Au, Pb-Zn, Iron ore, Uranium mine waste rock and bauxite tailings and residues.

My research strength lies in my multidisciplinary work and research program spans the interface between environmental microbiology, geochemistry, and plants. My expertise includes 1) mineral characterization, 2) soil and rhizosphere element cycling, 3) next-generation sequencing and online-controlled bioreactor techniques. Through the integrated application of environmental 'omics approaches, stable isotope analysis and imaging would give new insights into the fundamental element cycling processes of mined land mining wastes, and upon which I could develop novel biotechnology and methodology to prime sustainable mined land management and bioinoculum product with the field validated designated performance.

I have a keen interest in the evolutionary relationships that underpin symbioses, particularly those involved in plant disease. There are countless examples of how diseases have impacted on different crops throughout history, and this is an ongoing issue that deleteriously impacts food security. My research involves developing a better understanding of the epidemiology of plant diseases and pests, and delivering improved diagnostics and field management. Working with collaborators and international experts, my work involves research on a broad range of plants that are affected by bacteria, fungi, oomycetes and viruses. I have a strong interest in the biotic factors that govern soil health and the methods by which we can promote the development of beneficial microbial communities.

Biography:

Dr. Xueqin Zhang is currently a Research Fellow, and an ARC DECRA Fellow at Australian Centre of Water and Environmental Biotechnology (ACWEB, formerly AWMC), and School of Chemical Engineering. He obtained his Ph.D. in 2021 at Advanced Water Management Centre (AWMC) and then worked as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at ACWEB till November 2023. His research focuses on the physiology and ecology of novel microorganisms in biogeochemical cycling, bioelectrochemistry in carbon (methane) cycles and environmental bioremediation, and greenhouse gas (bio)conversion for value-adding applications. He has published over 40 peer-reviewed articles in top-tier journals including Nature Microbiology, Nature Communications, Environmental Science and Technology and Water Research. He acted as a Guest Editor of two journals and has been invited as a reviewer for over 10 journals. He serves on the editorial board of Frontiers of Environmental Science Engineering.

Teaching and Learning:

• Lecturer in Advanced Wastewater and Biosolids Treatment (WATR6103)
• Supervisor in Thesis project (CHEE7382)