A diverse showcase of biological, chemical and physical science projects including studies of sex differences in natural selection, and dating coral mortality and recovery rates in the Great Barrier Reef netted grants for UQ Faculty of Science researchers in the latest Australian Research Council round.
Executive Dean of Science Professor Melissa Brown congratulated successful Faculty researchers in the round, which included Discovery Projects, Discovery Early Career Researcher Awards (DECRAs) and Linkage Infrastructure, Equipment and Facilities (LIEF) grants.
Professor Bostjan Kobe of the School of Chemistry and Molecular Biosciences (SCMB) and colleagues were awarded a $3.189 million LIEF grant towards a state-of-the-art $8 million electron microscope for use in the biological and chemical sciences – one of only two LIEFs to UQ.
The specialist device – a Krios cryo-electron microscope – will be housed at The University of Queensland’s Centre for Microscopy and Microanalysis and jointly owned by UQ, QUT, Griffith University, the University of the Sunshine Coast and Monash University.
Discovery Projects grants valued at $6.178 million were made to 17 Faculty of Science projects, including:
- $540,766 to the School of Chemistry and Molecular Biosciences' Associate Professor Katryn Stacey for a study entitled: The core inflammasome as a model for caspase activation;
- $468,605 to a project led by SCMB Head Professor Paul Young – Koala retrovirus epidemic: genetic diversity, genome invasion and diseases;
- $416,584 to School of Earth and Environmental Sciences’ Professor Jian-xin Zhao and colleagues to study Uranium/thorium dating of coral mortality and recovery rates in the Great Barrier Reef;
- $416,584 to the School of Mathematics and Physics’ Professor Halina Rubinsztein-Dunlop and colleagues to research Probe-free biophysical force and torque measurements with optical tweezers; and
- $383,136 to the School of Biological Sciences’ Professor Christine Beveridge and Dr John Lunn to study A new signalling component in shoot architecture: trehalose 6-phosphate.
The Science Faculty also attracted three DECRAs, valued at $1.057 million.
A full list of UQ projects to receive ARC Discovery Projects funding is available on the Research Management System, the DECRAs, and LIEF.
