ICS MQRES - Ultrasensitive sensors using surface plasmon resonance and coupled emission
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Scholarships in ICS > Ultrasensitive sensors
The project will focus on detecting, enumerating and identifying low abundance proteins in physiological fluids which is a major challenge for medical diagnostics. This project will deepen the understanding of interaction of light with metal nanostructures, and, on this basis, a generic optical technology will be established for the detection of trace proteins in complex and dense physiological fluids such as whole blood. The highly sensitive technique developed in this project will be applicable to biomarkers at clinically relevant levels and it will remove the limitations of long analysis times, high instrumentation costs and the difficulty of real-time monitoring common in conventional methods.
The new method will be able to detect specific disease markers or to identify subtle differences in protein content in complex dense analytes such as blood and other body fluids, of practical utility in diagnostic and clinical situations. It will also be relevant in other areas such as medical diagnostics of viral diseases, and for unsolved environmental monitoring problems such as the presence of specific microorganisms in industrial waste. Owing to their design simplicity and low cost of components, the devices developed in this program will lend themselves well to the development of new commercial technologies for Australia.
Also refer to Ewa's web page at Nanobiophotonics, take the sidebar link to Postgraduate Projects Currently Offered and select the SPR link.
Applicants should have either completed an Australian four-year undergraduate degree in a relevant discipline with high first class honours, or, for overseas applicants, be able to demonstrate equivalent qualifications.
The scholarship pays a living allowance currently $19,231 per annum, tax exempt (2006) and the tenure is 3.5 years full time subject to satisfactory progress. Tuition fees will be funded for the scholarship tenure with domestic students receiving RTS placement for their research degree tuition and International award holders having their fees sponsored.
Further information on the project is available from the supervisor: Ewa Goldys, telephone 9850 8902, goldys@ics.mq.edu.au, (http://www.physics.mq.edu.au/~goldys/core/).
Application forms, and conditions for MQRES awards, are available from the Higher Degree Research Unit by phoning (02) 9850 7663, by e-mailing pgschol@mq.edu.au, or by downloading from http://research.mq.edu.au/students/scholarships.
Applications should be forwarded to:
The Scholarship Officer
Higher Degree Research Unit
Cottage C4C
Macquarie University
NSW 2109
Closing Date: to be advised.