Safeguarding Australia against vector-borne disease bio-incursions. Traditional diagnostic tests limited by their accuracy and ability to detect more than a few pathogens at one time, presents a major hurdle to protecting Australia's companion animals from a plethora of exotic and emerging vector-borne diseases (VBD). Many of these diseases also pose a major risk to public health. This project aims to develop, validate and verify a highly accurate, cost-effective, portable metabarcoding diagnost ....Safeguarding Australia against vector-borne disease bio-incursions. Traditional diagnostic tests limited by their accuracy and ability to detect more than a few pathogens at one time, presents a major hurdle to protecting Australia's companion animals from a plethora of exotic and emerging vector-borne diseases (VBD). Many of these diseases also pose a major risk to public health. This project aims to develop, validate and verify a highly accurate, cost-effective, portable metabarcoding diagnostic test capable of detecting known, emerging and novel parasitic, bacterial and viral VBD pathogens simultaneously, from clinical samples. The assay will represent a potential paradigm shift in the way VBD are tested, for the purpose of safeguarding Australia against VBD bio-incursions.Read moreRead less
Rapid evolution via genetic novelty in an invasive social insect. This project aims to determine how introduced Asian honey bee populations in Australia and the Pacific managed to overcome severe genetic bottlenecks to become invasive pests. The project will use advanced molecular techniques to understand rapid evolution at a focal gene that determines fitness in these populations, and to see evolution in action across the genome using a twelve-year timeline of samples. The outcome will be an en ....Rapid evolution via genetic novelty in an invasive social insect. This project aims to determine how introduced Asian honey bee populations in Australia and the Pacific managed to overcome severe genetic bottlenecks to become invasive pests. The project will use advanced molecular techniques to understand rapid evolution at a focal gene that determines fitness in these populations, and to see evolution in action across the genome using a twelve-year timeline of samples. The outcome will be an enhanced capacity to manage new outbreaks of invasive social insects of all kinds via a better understanding of how invasions establish and spread. This should provide significant benefits in the form of protecting Australian agriculture and pollination services from social insect pests.Read moreRead less
Development of strategy for comprehensive protection of Australia against respiratory diseases by real time detection of airborne pathogenic microbes. The project will develop a real time portable bioaerosol detector capable of identifying a presence of targeted microorganisms in the ambient air immediately upon their appearance. The device will become a powerful tool capable of protecting Australia by minimising the possible spread of infectious respiratory diseases causing global pandemics.
Transport risk pathways for emerging invasive species. Our Australian economy depends on tourism and trade and this carries unavoidable risks for the introduction and establishment of new invasive pests and diseases. This project will build datasets from four real-world problem agenda in global invasion biology. Informed by these data, this project will develop and apply state-of-the-art mathematical transport models to predict the risks and frequency of future biological invasion events. The pr ....Transport risk pathways for emerging invasive species. Our Australian economy depends on tourism and trade and this carries unavoidable risks for the introduction and establishment of new invasive pests and diseases. This project will build datasets from four real-world problem agenda in global invasion biology. Informed by these data, this project will develop and apply state-of-the-art mathematical transport models to predict the risks and frequency of future biological invasion events. The project will contribute directly to safeguarding Australia from invasive pests and diseases.Read moreRead less