Dr. Laura Grogan is a qualified veterinarian, Senior Lecturer in Wildlife Science, Chair of the Wildlife Disease Association Australasian section, and Leader of the Biodiversity Health Research Team (https://www.biodiversity-health.org/) - a collaborative multiple-university research group focused on finding sustainable solutions for the most challenging threatening processes currently affecting biodiversity.
Dr. Grogan has a background in research on wildlife diseases, ecology and conservation. She's particularly interested in investigating the dynamics, relative importance, and impacts of infectious diseases among other threats affecting wildlife across both individual and population scales, to improve conservation management. While she works across taxa and methodological approaches, her main study system currently involves the devastating amphibian fungal skin disease, chytridiomycosis, where at the individual scale she focuses on the pathogenesis and amphibian immune response to the disease, untangling the roles of resistance and tolerance in defense against infection. At the population and landscape scale she explores mechanisms underlying persistence in the face of endemic infection, focused on the endangered Fleay's barred frog. She also studies population and infection dynamics of chlamydiosis in koala using a mathematical modelling approach, exploring the relative benefits of different management approaches. In addition to working on amphibian and koala diseases, Laura is a keen birdwatcher and wildlife photographer, and supervises projects in other wildlife-related fields.
You can find out more about her research team here: www.biodiversity-health.org. Dr. Grogan has been awarded around $1.3 million in research funding since 2018. In late 2019 she was awarded an Australian Research Council Discovery Early Career Researcher Award (DECRA; DE200100490), worth $426,742. This project, titled "Understanding infection tolerance to improve management of wildlife disease", commenced in late 2020. Dr. Grogan was identified as one of the four top-ranked science DECRA awardees by the Australian Academy of Science’s 2020 J G Russell Award, and was also recipient of the highest award of the Wildlife Disease Association Australasia Section with their 2019 Barry L Munday Recognition Award.
PhD and Honours projects are now available in the following areas:
Can frogs be ‘vaccinated’ by antifungal treatment of active infections to develop protective immunity to the devastating chytrid fungus? (Principal Supervisor)
Establishing the conservation status of south-east Queensland’s amphibians - occupancy surveys and species distribution models (Principal Supervisor)
Tadpoles as a reservoir of the lethal frog chytrid fungal disease – measuring sublethal effects on growth, time to metamorphosis and ability to forage (mouthpart loss) (Principal Supervisor)
Impacts of chytrid fungus on the survival of juvenile endangered Fleay’s barred frogs, Mixophyes fleayi, and importance for population recruitment (Principal Supervisor)
Measuring the infection resistance versus tolerance of barred frogs to the devastating chytrid fungal disease to improve management outcomes (Principal Supervisor)
Mapping the impacts of fire-fighting chemicals on endangered frog habitats (Co-Supervisor)
Bowra birds: what do long-term monitoring data reveal about bird communities in the semi-arid region? (Co-Supervisor) * Impacts of fire-fighting chemicals on endangered frogs: Implications for conservation and management (Co-Supervisor)
Queensland Alliance for Agriculture and Food Innovation
Availability:
Available for supervision
Media expert
Prof Tim Mahony joined QAAFI’s Centre for Animal Science in October 2010, after 15 years of conducting research projects with the Queensland Government. He obtained his PhD from James Cook University in the area of molecular microbiology. During 2001 and 2002, Prof Mahony was a visiting professor at the University of Saskatchewan.
Research interests
Dr Mahony’s research interests are in the area of molecular virology revolving around improving viral disease control in production animals such as cattle and poultry. His group is characterising the molecular interactions between invading pathogens and the subsequent host responses with the goal of developing new vaccines and diagnostic technologies. A key component of this work includes improving the basic understanding of the molecular mechanisms that underpin and drive viral virulence and evolution. Next-generation sequencing has been used to sequence the genomes of herpesviruses and adenoviruses from a variety of species including, cattle, chickens, marsupials, horses, and crocodiles. Prof Mahony’s team is also investigating the role of virally encoded microRNAs in virulence, replication, and disease development. His group was one of the first in the world to apply bacterial artificial chromosome infectious clone technology for the efficient manipulation of herpesviruses that have large DNA genomes. These strategies are also being exploited to understand viral gene function and the development of vaccines.
Currently, Prof Mahony is researching risk factors that protect and predispose feedlot cattle to developing bovine respiratory disease (BRD). He is also leading the development of new vaccines for BRD and cattle tick infestations. Prof Mahony has also led the development of new vaccine delivery technologies for the poultry industry targeting the application of in ovo strategies. Prof Mahony research into improving animal health is increasing industry productivity, food safety, and consumer confidence in food products and he is keen to explore collaborations with other scientists in this area.
Prof Mahony has a strong interest to work with post-graduate students and has supervised a number of post-graduate students from Australia and overseas. These projects have covered research areas in molecular virology, animal health, vaccine development, and pathogen-host interactions.
