Australia urgently requires improved water recycling and water purification technologies. The first critical step in any water recycling process is an effective activated sludge treatment process. Many treatment plants suffer from the formation of very stable microbiological foams on their aeration tanks which cause major environmental, cosmetic, operational and health related problems. There is currently no cost effective way to treat or prevent these foams which have been estimated to cost the water industry several billion dollars per year.
Two projects are
offered. Together they involve the isolation and molecular characterisation of bacteriophage that infect the foam causing filamentous bacteria with the aim of developing an environmentally friendly method
to foam control. This novel approach has proven successful in a number of other microbial systems and offers a means of targeting only the problem causing bacteria while leaving unharmed the useful strains
required for plant operation. The PhD projects will involve working with our industry partners to trial the phages in a pilot scale system.
These projects will require applying a wide range of molecular and microbiology techniques including: environmental sampling to isolate new phage, the construction of gene libraries, genome sequencing
and bioinformatic analysis, determination of phage specificity and ecology, large-scale phage production, and testing of the phage biocontrol for in pilot scale microbial foaming systems.
These two projects are part of an ARC-Linkage funded project, with Melbourne Water and South East Water as the industry partners, and are based at La Trobe Universities Bendigo campus.
More information on the funded ARC linkage project and its aims can be found here.
Applicants should possess a Bachelors (Honours class I or IIa) or Masters degree in biochemistry, biotechnology, microbiology, molecular biology, virology, or other relevant area. You must be an Australian or New Zealand citizen or an Australian permanent resident.
These are full-time, scholarships for a fixed-term of 3 years, currently at $26,118 per annum (tax-free). Relocation allowances are also available.
Email for more information.