Major Grants for funding commencing in 2015
Examples of Western Australian
Discovery Early Career Researcher Award projects
Western Australian (WA) research organisations will receive more than $5 million through the
Australian Research Council DECRA scheme for 14 new research projects commencing in
2015.
Some examples of the WA projects are provided below.
To view the summaries of all successful projects, visit the ARC announcements page.
The University of Western Australia
DECRA Recipient: Associate Professor Dirk Lorenser (DE150101005)
Summary: The project aims to develop new types of tiny biomedical imaging devices based
on optical fibres that can be inserted into the body via hypodermic needles or catheters.
These devices will have the ability to generate a three-dimensional image of the tissue
region. As the devices will also be able to sense biochemical or mechanical properties of the
tissue, they can be used to differentiate healthy from diseased tissue. These minimally
invasive devices will produce information-rich multidimensional fused image and sensor data,
opening up new possibilities for biologists and medical researchers to study disease
progression and treatment in living animals and humans, with great potential for scientific
discovery.
ARC funding: $378 288
Murdoch University
DECRA Recipient: Dr Deborah Pino-Pasternak (DE150100731)
Summary: How do young children develop critical learning behaviours that are the key for
their future academic success?. What kinds of environments support this development? This
project aims to answer these questions by investigating the development of regulatory
behaviours (with a specific focus on self-regulated learning) during the first two years of
schooling, and identifying critical contextual variables at home and at school impacting on
this development. Findings from this research will provide crucial information for the design
of family and practitioner-based interventions helping to improve the educational outcomes of
young Australians.
ARC funding: $361 744
Curtin University of Technology
DECRA Recipient: Dr Kaiming Bi (DE150100195)
Summary: Pipelines are important structures but are vulnerable to different types of
damage. This damage is often associated with pipeline vibration. It is important to control
adverse vibrations to reduce the risk of catastrophic damage. This project proposes using
sandwich pipe to suppress different sources of vibrations that may be experienced during the
lifetime of the pipeline. Analytical, numerical and experimental investigations will be carried
out to demonstrate the feasibility of the proposed method. The project aims to develop direct
applications for designing pipelines to suppress different sources of vibration and to
guarantee the safety of pipelines.
ARC funding: $360 000
The University of Western Australia
DECRA Recipient: Dr Bruno Buzatto (DE150101521)
Summary: Diseases, crops, livestock, and even some natural resources evolve, therefore
comprehending evolutionary processes and their implications for humans is paramount. A
paradigm shift in evolutionary theory was the realisation that genes are not the whole story,
and that plasticity to the environment is vital for evolution. This highlights the importance of
environmentally sensitive traits, such as conditional alternative phenotypes, where a genome
can produce completely different morphologies in different environments. This project aims to
investigate the development, evolutionary potential, and ecology of alternative phenotypes,
contributing to our ability to understand and manage the most important of biological
processes, evolution.
ARC funding: $349 699
Murdoch University
DECRA Recipient: Dr Adrian Gleiss (DE150100321)
Summary: Climate variation will continue to impact biodiversity on our globe. Exciting new
evidence has suggested that terrestrial ectotherms can minimise their vulnerability to
changing temperatures by altering their thermoregulatory behaviour. Fish, unlike terrestrial
ectotherms do not possess the same ability to thermoregulate and it is unclear how
behavioural changes may reduce a population's vulnerability to climate change. This project
aims to combine bio-logging technology, energy budget theory and climate models to predict
the potential role that changing behaviours may have in reducing the vulnerability of fish
populations to climate change.
ARC funding: $335 000
The University of Western Australia
DECRA Recipient: Dr David Secco (DE150100460)
Summary: DNA methylation (mC) is a covalent modification of DNA essential for the
establishment and maintenance of correct gene expression patterns and recently suggested
to be responsive to some environmental cues in plants. Using cutting edge technologies, this
project aims to identify nutrient stress-induced mC changes and investigate the role that
these changes may play in transcriptional regulation, as well as assessing whether these
changes can be transmitted to the next generation to confer intergenerational stress
responsiveness. Altogether this project aims to provide fundamental knowledge of the role of
mC in plant gene regulation and stress response as well as paving the way for the next
generation of novel crop-improvement strategies.
ARC funding: $380 000