Biomonitoring Early Life Exposure To Plastic Products In Australia And Assessing Health Consequences.
Funder
National Health and Medical Research Council
Funding Amount
$405,231.00
Summary
The World Health Organisation states that the health impacts of toxic chemical exposure, including plastics, during early life are a modern research priority. Of potential concern, two plastic product sets – phthalates and phenols may be linked to adverse neurodevelopmental consequences. This project aims to provide greater clarity on exposure levels, determinants and health consequences of early life plastic exposure among modern Australian children and accelerate proactive policy responses.
Development Of A Simple Chemical Test For Detecting DNA-interacting Compounds For Medical And
Funder
National Health and Medical Research Council
Funding Amount
$315,450.00
Summary
The project exploits a simple chemical reaction to detect and measure the interaction of compounds with DNA. The test will be useful in the early screening of drug candidates for genotoxicity, identifying new anticancer drugs and also find application in the environmental, cosmetic and food industries. Work will focus on establishing peak conditions for the test, determining the scope of application, testing a panel of control compounds and performing a blind study to provide proof of concept.
Australian Laureate Fellowships - Grant ID: FL120100108
Funder
Australian Research Council
Funding Amount
$2,849,770.00
Summary
Surrogate ecology: when and where can it work to improve environmental management? New empirical analyses and new ecological theory will be used to discover where, when and how to best apply surrogates. New capacity will be built in surrogate ecology and the results used to significantly enhance the effective management and monitoring of environments and biodiversity both in Australia and worldwide.
Establishing advanced networks for air quality sensing and analyses. Establishing advanced networks for air quality sensing and analyses. This project aims to develop innovative, cost-effective, high resolution air quality networks. Recent developments in sensor technologies improve the ability to harvest atmospheric data. This project will develop, validate and implement methods for high sensitivity atmospheric sensing and apply cutting-edge statistical and analytic techniques to the data sets, ....Establishing advanced networks for air quality sensing and analyses. Establishing advanced networks for air quality sensing and analyses. This project aims to develop innovative, cost-effective, high resolution air quality networks. Recent developments in sensor technologies improve the ability to harvest atmospheric data. This project will develop, validate and implement methods for high sensitivity atmospheric sensing and apply cutting-edge statistical and analytic techniques to the data sets, unprecedented in scope and resolution. Outcomes include an open access database to quantify and visualise intra-urban air pollution and human exposure and develop air quality maps and smoke pollution management tools. It is expected to advance the evidence-based management of air as a resource, increasing economic prosperity and enhancing human health and quality of life.Read moreRead less
The melioidosis agent Burkholderia pseudomallei in the anthropogenic environment of northern Australia. This project will analyse environmental factors contributing to the persistence of the soil bacterium and melioidosis agent, Burkholderia pseudomallei in the anthropogenic environment. This will increase understanding of the consequences of land use manipulations upon these bacteria and will suggest remediation measures to reduce the risk of exposure.
Development Of Alternative Fishing Practices For The Harvesting Of Wild And Re-seeded Scallop Beds In Tasmania
Funder
Fisheries Research and Development Corporation
Summary
Objectives: 1. Determine efficiency of beam, triple & prawn trawling methods for harvesting scallops. 2. Investigate different in efficiency & bottom damage between sputnik dredge & Japanese keta-ami dredge. 3. Study dredge & trawl net behaviour using CSIRO underwater surveillance equip
Seafood CRC: Quantifying Physiological And Behavioural Responses Of Cultured Abalone To Stress Events
Funder
Fisheries Research and Development Corporation
Funding Amount
$102,545.04
Summary
It is desirable for any primary producer to understand the health and welfare of their stock. This will ultimately enable optimal production and return on investment.
The challenge in any aquaculture system is ‘observing’ the physiological and behavioural responses associated with environment, production and other stressors; all factors that impact on the animal health and welfare and so overall production efficiency. Suboptimal health is often associated with culturing conditions, an ....It is desirable for any primary producer to understand the health and welfare of their stock. This will ultimately enable optimal production and return on investment.
The challenge in any aquaculture system is ‘observing’ the physiological and behavioural responses associated with environment, production and other stressors; all factors that impact on the animal health and welfare and so overall production efficiency. Suboptimal health is often associated with culturing conditions, and this is predicted to become more prevalent and unpredictable with a changing climate. There is therefore an immediate and long-term need to overcome the 'observation' challenge.
How do we know if conditions are optimal, and the observed performance efficient and sustainable? Generally for aquaculture species, such as molluscs, it is through measurements of growth rate and survival, equating to biomass produced, rather than on metabolic and behaviour observations on the animal, that are difficult to observe and poorly understood. Therefore there is limited information available for optimising the commercial environment from the animal’s perspective.
Sub-optimal conditions lead to stress, and there are multiple (observed and unobserved) stressors or stress events within a commercial growout system, the impact of which on an abalone’s physiology is poorly understood. Measurement of an animal’s response to stress is usually retrospective of the event and via invasive sample collection (an additional stressor).
This proposal is taking advantage of the development of a new research tool (“biologger”) for the in-situ measurement of physiological and behavioural parameters to gain an understanding of the response of the abalone to a range of commonly experienced and predicted stressors in a commercial system. This research will provide knowledge for refining farm management protocols, and in the longer-term for developing real-time bio-monitoring of farm management protocols.
Objectives: 1. To determine the physiological coping ranges and responses of temperate abalone to various environmental and production stressors measured under controlled laboratory conditions. 2. To attempt to monitor in-situ farmed temperate abalone under commercial conditions to identify and understand the key physiological and behavioural responses to a variety of production stessors 3. To develop preliminary algorithms to enable interpretation of data from biologgers in the context of physiological and behavioural response to identified stressors 4. To identify any potential applications of existing biologgers to improve current farm management protocols Read moreRead less
Estimating per capita use and release of chemicals by wastewater analysis. This project aims to systematically collect and analyse wastewater to assess human exposure to chemicals including drugs, pharmaceuticals, lifestyle chemicals and environmental pollutants. By combining temporal sampling from key sewage treatment plants with comprehensive nationwide sampling over the week of the 2016 census day, the project expects to estimate the per-capita human exposure to chemicals in the Australian po ....Estimating per capita use and release of chemicals by wastewater analysis. This project aims to systematically collect and analyse wastewater to assess human exposure to chemicals including drugs, pharmaceuticals, lifestyle chemicals and environmental pollutants. By combining temporal sampling from key sewage treatment plants with comprehensive nationwide sampling over the week of the 2016 census day, the project expects to estimate the per-capita human exposure to chemicals in the Australian population. Accurate and objective per-capita based consumption and release estimates for a wide range of chemicals is intended to provide a baseline against which to measure changes in our chemosphere.Read moreRead less
Discovery Early Career Researcher Award - Grant ID: DE120100161
Funder
Australian Research Council
Funding Amount
$375,000.00
Summary
Accumulation and half-lives of brominated flame retardants. This project seeks to determine, in vivo, previously unknown half-lives for brominated flame retardants, chemicals used in numerous, everyday products. This is vital for predicting the duration of human contamination with these persistent, toxic, bioaccumulative chemicals and assessing effectiveness of legislation to reduce human exposure.
'Streamlining search and destroy': development of a robust prioritisation framework for weed eradication using Hawkweed species. Introduced species are one of the greatest threats to our biodiversity and agriculture, as evidenced by the ARC’s National Research Priority: Safeguarding Australia. This project will advance Australia’s ability to protect itself from invaders by developing tools that guide cost-effective detection and response. Our project will have a direct effect on the planning a ....'Streamlining search and destroy': development of a robust prioritisation framework for weed eradication using Hawkweed species. Introduced species are one of the greatest threats to our biodiversity and agriculture, as evidenced by the ARC’s National Research Priority: Safeguarding Australia. This project will advance Australia’s ability to protect itself from invaders by developing tools that guide cost-effective detection and response. Our project will have a direct effect on the planning and management of Hawkweed control in Victoria and New South Wales. The framework delivered will have direct application to numerous other weeds (and relevance to other pests and diseases) within and beyond Australia. Read moreRead less