UNSW Science Vacation Research Scholarships (SVRS) 2022 - 2023
THIS ROUND HAS CLOSED (applications closed on Friday 16 September 2022). 2023-2024 information will be added below once known.
Are you a science student who would like the opportunity to experience the real world of scientific research first-hand?
Put your summer holidays to good use with a six-week Summer Vacation Research Scholarship. You’ll gain valuable research experience working with our renowned supervisors to participate in a research project. If you’re a talented undergraduate science student enrolled in your second year or above, it’s an opportunity worth applying for.
Students currently enrolled in second-year or above of an undergraduate program in the Faculty of Science or a science-related discipline at UNSW or another Australian university are invited to apply for an SVRS to join a BABS research team and participate in research over the coming summer.
Each SVRS scholarship is valued at $3,800 and students will participate in a six-week research project.
The school facilitates collaborative research efforts across discipline boundaries for fundamental discoveries, generation of commercial opportunities and clinical research. BABS has key strengths in environmental microbiology, genetics and cellular biology, molecular medicine, and associated technology development in the areas of functional genomics and many facets of biotechnology. The school has a unique strength in combining fundamental biological and biomolecular sciences with strong applied biotechnology and medical focus.
Eligibility
To be eligible:
- You must be currently enrolled in second-year or above of an undergraduate program in the Faculty of Science or a science-related discipline at UNSW or another Australian university.
- You must be able to be engaged in a project on a full-time basis (35 hours/week for six weeks during normal working hours unless advised otherwise by the supervisor).
- Projects must focus on research-based activities (administration tasks are not regarded as research) and should be completed by the end of February.
- Each successful candidate can hold only ONE such scholarship at a time.
- Students who were previously awarded a UNSW Science Vacation Research Scholarship are not eligible to apply.
How to apply
The first step of the application process is to contact the supervisor of your chosen project to discuss the project's requirements. When you have decided on your project preferences, please submit the application forms by the closing date - 16 September 2022.
Full details (including how to apply) are provided on the Scholarships website and enquiries can be directed to science.adrt@unsw.edu.au. Note: Students are required to submit 2 applications - a scholarship application (attaching their CV and academic transcripts as one PDF file) and the UNSW Science Vacation Research Scholarship Form.
SVRS Projects 2022 - 2023
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Supervisor: Dr Matthew Baker
Email: matthew.baker@unsw.edu.au
Description: In this project we explore the directed evolution of the flagellar motor in the lab by evolving it to swim under different energy sources and selecting for motility. We aim to explore how motility evolves across interfaces, when a bacterium faces a change in environment between, for example, H+ and Na+ environments, and how the bacteria adapts to dwindling nutrient across this interface. This project has scope for designing and building custom tanks to optimise bacterial evolution using 3D printing and prototyping, as well as investigating microbiology and bacterial motility in multiple dimensions using layered swim devices.
Experience required: some background in microbiology would be good.
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Supervisor: Dr Natalia Castano-Rodriguez
Email: n.castanorodriguez@unsw.edu.au
Description: Upon recognition by pattern recognition receptors, in particular Toll-like receptors (TLRs), the bacterium Helicobacter pylori is known to disrupt the normal body homeostasis and induce acute inflammation, which may progress over time to stomach cancer. An increasing amount of evidence suggests that polymorphisms in the TLR genes, including TLR4 rs11536889, are involved in modulating these immune signalling pathways, thereby increasing the risk of gastric carcinogenesis. We will now investigate the underlying mechanisms using ex-vivo and in-vitro methods.
Experience required: Knowledge and/or interest in immunology, genetics and microbiology.
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Supervisor: A/Prof Kate Quinlan
Email: kate.quinlan@unsw.edu.au
Description: Obesity is a global health problem. White fat cells, which play a major role in scoring excess energy, can be converted into beige fat cells which burn fat as heat rather than storing it. We are interested in determining how beige fat cells can be activated such that adipose tissue could be converted from an energy storing depot to an energy burning factory as a new therapeutic option for obesity. We are studying the role that adipose-resident immune cells play in beige fat activation by signalling to the fat cells. This project seeks to shed light on this question using a comination of molecular biology and cell biology techniques. It is a wet lab project.
Experience required: No research experience is required but this project would most suit students who have enjoyed undergraduate subjects in biochemistry, molecular biology, cell biology, genetics and/or immunology. This project is ideally suited to students who are commencing their final year of undergraduate studies in 2023. This project is not suitable for students who will have completed the final year of their undergraduate degree and are intending to commence honours in Term 1/Semester 1 2023. The 6-week project can be conducted at a mutually convenient time within the November 2022-February 2023 window with the exception of 19 December 2022 - 16 January 2023.
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Supervisor: A/Prof Kate Quinlan
Email: kate.quinlan@unsw.edu.au
Description: Sickle cell disease is a debilitating blood disease that arise due to mutations in adult globin genes. However, humans express different globin genes at different developmental stages. The foetal globin genes are normally silenced shortly after birth by a gene regulation process known as globin switching. Some individuals have rare beneficial mutations that allow them to continue to express foetal globin into adulthood and that alleviate the symptoms of sickle cell disease. This project seeks to determine ways that foetal globin silencing can be reversed with the aim of developing new therapeutic options for sickle cell disease. The project uses a combination of molecular biology and cell biology approaches. It is a wet lab project.
Experience required: No research experience is required but this project would most suit students who have enjoyed undergraduate subjects in biochemistry, molecular biology, cell biology and/or genetics. This project is ideally suited to students who are commencing their final year of undergraduate studies in 2023. This project is not suitable for students who will have completed the final year of their undergraduate degree and are intending to commence honours in Term 1/Semester 1 2023. The 6-week project can be conducted at a mutually convenient time within the November 2022-February 2023 window with the exception of 19 December 2022 - 16 January 2023.
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Supervisor: Dr Fatemeh Vafaee
Email: f.vafaee@unsw.edu.au
Description: Deep learning has revolutionized research in image processing and speech recognition and will soon transform research in molecular biomedicine. Deep learning models can capture multiple levels of representation directly from raw data without the need to carefully engineer features based on fine-tuned algorithmic approaches or domain expertise. Omics data is one of the most prominent examples of feature‐rich and high‐dimensional heterogeneous data and thus multi-omics data analysis and integration have increasingly become a deep learning harvesting field in computational biology. We are developing deep learning and other machine learning models to leverage large omics data for finding hidden structures within them, for integrating heterogeneous data and for making accurate predictions in different biomedical applications ranging from single-cell omics analysis and multi-omics biomarker discovery to human functional genomics and drug discovery (papers to look into: http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/nar/gkac436; http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/bib/bbab304; http://dx.doi.org/10.1101/2022.05.10.491423).
Experience required: Students need to have experience in programming and interest in machine learning/artificial intelligence methods applied to biomedical applications.
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Supervisor: Dr Fatemeh Vafaee
Email: f.vafaee@unsw.edu.au
Description: Repositioning existing drugs for new indications is an innovative drug discovery strategy offering the possibility of reduced cost, time and risk as several phases of de-novo drug discovery can be bypassed for repositioning candidates. Biopharmaceutical companies have recognised advantages of repositioning, and investment in the area is dramatically increasing. With the rapid advancement of high-throughput technologies and the explosion of various biological and medical data, computational drug repositioning has become an increasingly powerful approach to systematically identify potential repositioning candidates. My lab is running multiple research projects advancing the field of computational drug repositioning. We are developing computational tools and databases which integrate massive amounts of biological, pharmacological, and biomedical information related to compounds into advanced machine learning or network-based models to predict accurate repositioning candidates. Example of papers: (Azad et al, Briefings in Bioinformatics, 2020), (Azad et al, Patterns, 2021, http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.patter.2021.100325).
Experience required: Students need to have experience in programming and interest in data science.
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Supervisor: A/Prof Robert Weatheritt
Email: r.weatheritt@garvan.org.au
Description: Although each cell shares the same genetic information, the different layers of gene regulation orchestrate the diversity and regulation of gene expression which will lead a cell to differentiate. Along with alternative splicing and alternative transcription, alternative promoter usage (APU) is an important mechanism for transcriptome diversity and the regulation of gene expression. Indeed, this alternative usage may influence tissue/subcellular specificity, protein translation, and the function of the proteins. In this project, we aim to use Perturb-seq to characterize APU. This technology uses CRISPR interference (CRISPRi) coupled with single-cell RNA-seq. The advent of this single cell technology enables a high-throughput measurement of the direct genotype-phenotype relationship in an alternative promoter knockdown. You will be involved in the validation and functional characterisation of APU genes found in the Perturb-seq assay. Some of the methods you will learn include cell culture, RT-PCR, and Western blot.
Experience required: Prior knowledge/experience required for this project: All applicants should have a strong interest in molecular biology, and a curious mind. Science or medical science students with a background in biochemistry, and molecular biology (2nd and 3rd-year level).
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Supervisor: A/Prof Emily Wong
Email: e.s.wong@unsw.edu.au
Description: Enhancers are cis-regulatory elements that direct spatiotemporal expression. We are interested in using the latest methods to explore how to best decode these regulatory sequences. You will be exposed to both experimental and computational approaches used in high throughput analyses.
Experience required: machine learning / statistics / genetics genomics / molecular biology.
NOTE: If you identify a BABS staff member whose work you are interested in but they do not have a project listed on our website, you are encouraged to approach them to inquire whether they would be interested in offering a SVRS project.
Roy and Lois Tirrell Award (UGCA1213)
Amount: $5,000
The purpose of the scholarship is to support UNSW students studying an undergraduate degree program within the School of Biotechnology and Biomolecular Science.
Eligibility
The recipient must be currently enrolled in any full-time undergraduate degree program within the UNSW School of Biotechnology and Biomolecular Science including, but not limited to, the following programs*:
- Bachelor of Science
- Bachelor of Science (International)
- Bachelor of Biotechnology (Honours)
- Bachelor of Advanced Science
*Enrolment in a dual degree is also permissible.
Selection
Applicants will be considered based on their UAC Equity Scholarship or UAC Educational Access Scheme application, or another appropriate UNSW admissions pathway program.
Scholarship Availability
One recipient will be awarded this Scholarship. The Scholarship will be reoffered once the current Scholarship holder ceases to receive benefits. The last open round for applications was in 2019. See 'How to apply' below to confirm if applications are open.