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Vector-borne diseases (VBDs) are known for a long time to contribute significantly to the global burden of disease. These lead to epidemics, which upset health security and affect the socio-economy of a nation. Vectors and VBDs are all sensitive to climate, and the ongoing trend of climate change and variable weather conditions may lead to a change in the global scenario of these diseases. With changes in global climate, VBDs may shift to new regions, suitable for the pathogens and their vectors, and as such may switch to new host species. Being a parasitologist, I study parasites of veterinary importance and related diseases. My special research interest lies in understanding how vectors interact with pathogens, the effect of climate change on their ecology and epidemiology, and related sustainable control strategies.

To predict future changes in the ecology and epidemiology of the vectors and VBDs, first, we need to work on and understand the three primary entities within this disease transmission system, i.e. the pathogen, vector and the host. Secondly, we need to identify the climatic and environmental requirements of the vectors and vector-borne pathogens and the underlying cycle of events which run between them to help sustain the disease in a particular region. The global distribution of various VBDs and possibilities of spill over of these diseases between various regions and animal and vector species interests me the most. In the UK, my research was focussed on molecular and spatial epidemiology of ticks and flea-borne diseases. Further, I worked on a climate-based predictive model for the global distribution and risk of Haemonchus contortus (round worm of sheep). This model predicts the survival of worm larvae on pasture, based on the temperature and precipitation data and can help to predict the future spatial and temporal distribution and spread of H. contortus. Further, this model, along with targeted selective treatment (TST) of sheep, could help in reducing the pace at which anthelmintic resistance is developing in H. contortus and may help in sustainable sheep farming.

Currently, my lab is investigating the temporal and spatial distribution of zoonotic parasites among pet dogs in various regions of Southeast Queensland. In this project, we are collecting data from dog owners through an online survey pertaining to their knowledge of risk associated with dog parasites and their transmission into humans. Also, we are collecting dog faecal samples for microscopic and PCR analysis for various parasite eggs and oocysts. The data obtained from this survey will be analysed for determining the risk of spread of parasites among dogs as well as to humans in shared spaces and the relative risk of infection between parks.

Another study being conducted in my lab is about identifying drug resistance mechanisms in canine hookworms in Australia. The study will provide a baseline data on the frequencies of SNPs, known to confer benzimidazole resistance in animal helminths.

We have recently received an NHMRC 2021 grant looking into Targeted surveillance of major zoonotic arboviral and other vector-borne diseases in Australia using spectroscopy technology. Infectious diseases transmitted by vectors represent a significant health threat to the Australian biosecurity. Detection methods used in current surveillance of these pathogens are expensive, time consuming and require highly trained personnel. We propose to conduct a set of experiments to test the best spectroscopy technique to identify infected vectors and demonstrate its capacity as surveillance tool for vector control programs against these pathogens.

I always look forward to collaborating with fellow researchers within Australia and from different parts of the world to gain different perspectives of research of my interest.

Dr Melinda Ashcroft is a Research Fellow on Infectious Disease Epidemiology (Climate Change) in the Faculty of Medicine at The University of Queensland (UQ). Her current research focus is on Nontuberculous mycobacteria (NTM) and how NTM infections are associated with climate change and major weather events. Previously Melinda has worked at Monash University as a Research Fellow on the Sero-epidemiology of Klebsiella spp., at the University of Melbourne as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow on the Genomic Epidemiology of Neisseria gonorrhoeae and as a Research Associate at UQ on the genomics and epigenomics of extraintestinal pathogenic Escherichia coli. Melinda was awarded a Bachelor of Applied Science (Biotechnology/Biochemistry) in 2004 from Queensland University of Technology and a Master of Biotechnology in 2013 from UQ. She then switched fields to Microbial Genomics and was awarded a PhD from UQ in 2019 for her thesis: Evolution and function of mobile genetic elements and DNA methyltransferases in extraintestinal pathogenic Escherichia coli.

Evan Bailey is a postdoctoral researcher in the Molecular and Systems Medicine Group at the School of Biomedical Sciences and Queensland Brain Institute. His current work focuses on the interplay between innate immune signaling and cellular metabolism in neurodegenerative diseases utilising his skills and experience in molecular genetics, cellular physiology and computational biology.

Evan started his career as a Research Assistant in the lab of Dr. Natasha Kumar at UNSW, Sydney, studying functional plasticity in chemoreceptive brainstem neurons in response to chronic hypercapnia (elevated CO2) before moving to UQ to pursue a PhD in evolutionary-developmental neuroscience. His PhD work under the supervision of Dr. Laura Fenlon and Dr. Rodrigo Suarez focused on the evolution of cellular mechanisms controlling neuronal differentiation and fate specification in the neocortex of marsupial and placental mammals, resulting in publications in Nature Communications and PNAS. Throughout his research career, Evan has had a keen interest in how cells establish and maintain their functional identity across a wide range of contexts and how homesostatic programs (e.g. energy metabolism) influence cell identity and phenotypic transitions.

Scott Beatson is an Associate Professor and NHMRC Career Development Fellow at The University of Queensland (UQ). He specializes in bacterial pathogenomics: using whole-genome sequencing to investigate transmission, pathogenesis and antibiotic resistance in bacteria. Recent work from his group includes genomic analyses of pandrug resistant enterobacteriaceae and the multidrug resistant Escherichia coli ST131 pandemic clone. He was awarded a PhD from UQ for his work in bacterial pathogenesis in 2002 and developed his career in bacterial genomics in the United Kingdom with the support of fellowships from the Royal Commission for the Exhibition of 1851 (University of Oxford) and the UK Medical Research Council (University of Birmingham). Since returning to Australia he has held fellowships from both the NHMRC and ARC and has led a successful research group in the School of Chemistry and Molecular Biosciences at UQ since 2008. He is also a member of the Australian Infectious Diseases Research Centre and the Australian Centre for Ecogenomics. In 2016 he received the Frank Fenner Award from the Australian Society for Microbiology in recognition of his contribution to microbiology research in Australia.

As a teaching and research academic within the School of the Environment at the University of Queensland, I research the biology and genetics of mosquitoes in our region of the Indo-Pacific that delivers fundamental knowledge into the role mosquitoes play in mosquito-borne disease. This work moves across basic and applied research and has advanced our understanding of mosquitoes, their evolution, species’ distributions, permitting better focused mosquito control to be imagined. More recent research involves exploring new environmentally friendly biological control tools such as using the Wolbachia bacterium and genetic modification to combat mosquito-borne disease.

For more detail on my research please see below and at this link http://www.nigelbeebe.com

Dr Chan has a PhD in Genomics and Computational Biology from UQ. He underwent postdoctoral training at Rutgers University (USA) in algal genomics and evolution. He returmed to UQ in late 2011 as one of the inaugural Great Barrier Reef Foundation Bioinformatics Fellows.

Dr Chan joined the School of Chemistry and Molecular Biosciences in 2020 as a group leader at the Australian Centre for Ecogenomics (ACE). His group uses advanced computational approaches to study genome evolution and develop scalable approaches for comparative genomics.

An ecologist by training – I hold a B.Sc. (Hons) in Marine Ecology from the University of North Carolina, Wilmington and a Ph.D. in Ecological Modelling from Griffith University. I am broadly interested in exploring new ways to (1) understand how natural communities are formed and (2) predict how they will change over time. As an Amplify Fellow at UQ, my current research focuses on developing computational tools and adapting techniques from epidemiology and statistical forecasting to study how organisms and ecosystems respond to environmental change. This work is being applied to investigate natural dynamics for a range of natural systems including host-parasite interactions, wildlife populations and veterinary diseases.

I am an active member of the R community and have written and/or maintain several popular R packages. For example, I’m a lead developer on the MRFcov package for multivariate conditional random fields analyses. I also wrote the mvgam R package for fitting dynamic Generalised Additive Models to analyse and forecast multivariate ecological time series, and I regularly provide training seminars and workshops to help researchers learn techniques in ecological data analysis.

I am currently seeking Honours and PhD candidates with interests and/or skills in veterinary epidemiology, spatial / spatiotemporal modeling and quantitative ecology.

I am a molecular biologist and postdoctoral research fellow in Prof. Alexander Khromykh's laboratory. I specialise in non-coding RNA response to viral infections, virus genomics, RNA structure, and viral neuropathogenesis.

I began my journey with a Bachelor of Science in Molecular Biology, graduating in 2012. I then completed a master’s degree where I conducted research under Prof. Keith Chappell in viral protein structure (2015). I then pursued my PhD (2016-2020) at UQ's School of Biology under Prof. Sassan Asgari, where I studied the role of miRNAs in Aedes aegypti biology and viral infection as well as the use of small RNAs to induce gene expression in insects.

From 2020 to 2023 I worked as a postdoctoral researcher in Prof. Robert Harvey’s laboratory at the University of the Sunshine Coast. I conducted research into the genomics and molecular function of congenital neurodevelopmental disorders where our multi discipline team through the Centre for Research Excellence Neurocognitive Disorder identified and characterised new genes linked to developmental disorders.

Since 2023, I have been a postdoctoral researcher in Prof. Alexander Khromykh's RNA Virology lab. Here, I have contributed to work focusing on the role of flavivirus sfRNA in interferon signalling inhibition, as well as using single-cell sequencing and human brain organoids to study the pathogenesis of encephalitic flaviviruses. I have also been working on mosquito single-cell projects and insect-specific viruses for their role in preventing the transmission of pathogenic flaviviruses with Dr. Andrii Slonchak. In late 2024 as a Chief investigator, my team was awarded an NHMRC ideas grant for $1.4mil over four years to study a new class of small RNAs called tRNA-half, for their role in flavivirus infection and their potential use for therapeutics.

Evolutionary and ecological genomics of marine invertebrate animals.

Animals evolve because their genomes need to respond to the constantly changing environment presented by both their external habitat and their internal microbial symbionts. Over evolutionary time, these different factors interact during development, when the animal body plan is being established, to generate the extraordinary animal diversity that graces our planet. In ecological time, early life history stages must detect and respond to the precise nature of their environment to generate a locally-adapted functional phenotype. Using coral reef invertebrates from phyla that span the animal kingdom, we study these gene-environment interactions using genomic, molecular and cellular approaches combined with behavioural ecology in natural populations. We work mostly with embryonic and larval life history stages of indirect developers, as these are crucial to the survival, connectivity, and evolution of marine populations. When not immersed in the molecular or computer lab, we are lucky enough to be immersed in the ocean, often in beautiful places!

Paul Dennis leads an exciting research group that applies cutting-edge technologies to understand the roles of microorganisms and their responses to environmental change.

He is also a passionate educator and public speaker who advocates for the importance of biological diversity and evidence-based environmental awareness. He has talked about his research on ABC Radio and a range of other media outlets.

His teaching covers aspects of ecology, microbiology, plant and soil science, and climatology. He considers these topics to be of fundamental importance for the development of more sustainable societies and takes pride in helping others to obtain the knowledge and skills they need to build a better future.

Paul's research has taken him to Antarctica, the Amazon Rainforest, high mountains and oceans. The approaches used in his lab draw on a wide range of expertise in molecular biology, ecology, statistics, computer science, advanced imaging and soil science. He applies these skills to a wide-range of topics and systems including plant-microbe interactions, Antarctic marine and terrestrial ecology, biogeography, pollution and human health.

Plant viruses and horticultural crop improvement

Dr Dietzgen is internationally recognised for his work on plant virus characterisation, detection and engineered resistance. Before joining UQ, Dr Dietzgen was a Science Leader in Agri-Science in the Queensland Department of Employment, Economic Development and Innovation. He previously held research positions at the University of Adelaide, University of California, Cornell University and University of Kentucky. Dr Dietzgen’s research interests are in molecular virus-plant-insect interactions, virus biodiversity and evolution, and disease resistance mechanisms. His focus is on the biology of RNA viruses in the family Rhabdoviridae and the molecular protein interactions of plant-adapted rhabdoviruses and tospoviruses. He has published extensively on plant virus characterisation and genetic variability, RNAi- mediated virus resistance and diagnostic technologies with 20 review articles and book chapters and over 65 peer-reviewed publications.

I completed my PhD, supervised by Dr. Jan Engelstaedter, investigating host shift dynamics of parasites within a host clade. In this project I am was interested in understanding the long-term dynamics and consequences of host-shift dynamics, while taking into account the evolutionary relationships between host species. I was interested in identifying predictable patterns in the distribution of pathogens using statistical and mathematical modeling.

Currently, I am a postdoctoral researcher working at the University of Queensland under Dr. Christine Beveridge. I will be creating computational models of plant hormone signalling in order to make predictions on the phenotypic outcomes of plant species.

The molecular evolution of cytochrome P450 Enzymes: biological catalysts of unprecedented versatility.

Cytochrome P450 enzymes (CYPs, P450s) especially those responsible for drug metabolism in humans, are the unifying theme of the research in our lab. These fascinating enzymes are catalysts of exceptional versatility, and functional diversity. In humans they are principally responsible for the clearance of a practically unlimited variety of chemicals from the body, but are also critical in many important physiological processes. In other organisms (plants, animals, bacteria, fungi, almost everything!) they carry out an unprecedented range of functions, such as defense, chemical communication, neural development and even pigmentation. P450s are involved in the biosynthesis of an unequalled range of potent, biologically active natural products in microbes, plants and animals, including many antibiotics, plant and animal hormones, signalling molecules, toxins, flavours and fragrances. We are studying how P450s have evolved to deal with novel substrates by reconstructing ancestral precursors and evolutionary pathways, to answer such questions as how did the koala evolve to live on eucalyptus leaves, a toxic diet for most mammals.

The capabilities of P450s are only just coming to be fully recognized and structural studies on P450s should yield critical insights into how enzyme structure determines function. For example, recently we discovered that P450s are present within cells in the Fe(II) form, a finding that has led to a radical revision of the dogma concerning the P450 catalytic cycle, and has implications for the control of uncoupling of P450 activity in cells. Importantly, the biotechnological potential of P450s remains yet to be exploited. All of the specific research themes detailed below take advantage of our recognized expertise in the expression of recombinant human cytochrome P450 enzymes in bacteria. Our group is interested in finding out how P450s work and how they can be made to work better.

Artificial evolution of P450s for drug development and bioremediation: a way of exploring the sequence space and catalytic potential of P450s. The demonstrated catalytic diversity of P450 enzymes makes them the ideal starting material for engineering sophisticated chemical reagents to catalyse difficult chemical transformations. We are using artificial (or directed) evolution to engineer enzymes that are more efficient, robust and specialized than naturally occurring enzymes with the aim of selecting for properties that are commercially useful in the areas of drug discovery and development and bioremediation of pollutants in the environment. The approach we are using also allows us to explore the essential sequence and structural features that underpin all ~12000 known P450s so as to determine how they work.

Synthetic biology of enzymes for clean, green, solar-powered chemistry in drug development, bioremediation and biosensors. We have identified ancestral enzymes that are extremely thermostable compared to their modern counterparts, making them potentially very useful in industry, since they can withstand long incubations at elevated temperatures. They can be used as ‘off the shelf’ reagents to catalyse useful chemistry, such as in in drug discovery and development, fine chemicals synthesis, and cleaning up the environment. Working with drug companies, we are exploring how they can be best deployed in chemical processes and what structural features make them efficient, robust and specialized. We are also immobilizing P450s in virus-like-particles as ‘designer’ reagents that can be recovered from reactions and reused. To make such processes cheaper and more sustainable, we are using photosynthesis to power P450 reactions for clean, green biocatalysis in microalgae.

Biosketch:

After graduating from UQ with first class Honours in Biochemistry, Elizabeth took up a Royal Commission for the Exhibition of 1851 Overseas Scholarship to pursue doctoral work at Oxford University then undertook postdoctoral work at the Center in Molecular Toxicology and Department of Biochemistry at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine with Prof. F.P. Guengerich. She returned to UQ in 1993 to take up a position in Pharmacology and joined the School of Chemistry and Molecular Biosciences in 2009 as a Professor of Biochemistry.

(she/her)

Dr. Laura Grogan is a qualified veterinarian, Senior Lecturer in Wildlife Science 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, wildlife photographer and artist. She supervises projects across wildlife-related fields (predominantly vertebrates).

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 (plus many more areas - please get in touch if you have an idea):

• 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)

I am a developmental neuroscientist and bioinformatician interested in the molecular evolution of the mammalian brain. I completed a PhD on the molecular development of vasculature in the primate retina at the Australian National University, followed by a postdoctoral position at the Institut de la Vision in France that was supported by a NHMRC CJ Martin fellowship, where I investigated the role of guidance factors in the formation of commissural neurons within the mammalian hindbrain. My current research focuses on the development and evolution of the mammalian forebrain, in particular understanding the regulatory mechanisms and molecular evolutionary processes that control specification of cortical neuron subtypes.

Andrew is a population biologist in the School of Biological Sciences. A broad goal of his research is to understand the effect of environmental variability on the stability of ecological communities. At the same time, in order to deliver on this broader goal, he is working to scale up understanding from simple tractable systems to the more complex dynamics of real world-systems.

Before joining UQ, he was a Marie Curie fellow working with Jonathan Levine and Alex Hall at ETH Zurich (2018-2020), a postdoctoral fellow in Daniel Stouffer's lab at the University of Canterbury, New Zealand (2017-2018), and a CEHG (Centre for Computational, Evolutionary and Human Genomics) postdoctoral fellow in Tad Fukami's lab at Stanford University, USA (2015-2017). He did his PhD (2011-2015) with David Keith in the Centre for Ecosystem Science at UNSW Australia.