Student Profile

Joanne Allard

Joanne Allard, an early career researcher at Defence Science Technology Group (DSTG) and PhD candidate at the University of Queensland, is making significant contributions to a DMTC-led collaboration that has the potential to deliver significant breakthroughs in combating the threat posed by potentially deadly nerve agents.

Nerve agents pose a genuine threat to both Defence personnel and to public health.

Current therapeutics against nerve agents are lacking, as they either only treat symptoms not the cause, or are narrow-spectrum therapeutics, or have unwanted side effects.

DMTC is working collaboratively with scientists from DSTG and UQ to produce a more cost-effective, broad spectrum therapeutic that targets nerve agents in the body, increasing levels of protection for both Defence and civilian populations.

Joanne has undertaken the bulk of the scientific work to progress this project to date, utilising innovative molecular mapping and protein engineering approaches to create completely novel constructs that express optimised therapeutic constructs.

Joanne has also analysed the key attributes vital to the future success of the intended therapeutic constructs. These include characteristics such as the stability and half-life of the construct – vital considerations in the storage and deployability of a future therapeutic.

In investigating novel avenues to respond to chemical threats, Joanne is engaged in work of interest both in Australia and internationally, and with applications in – but also far beyond – the defence and national security arena.

As a Smart Enough Factory intern, Thomas Hughes played an integral role in assisting DMTC to boost the readiness of Victorian small businesses in the manufacturing sector.

Throughout his internship, Thomas worked with Melbourne-based companies SEM Fire and Rescue (SEM) and Carbon Revolution. In the case of SEM, an emergency services vehicles manufacturer with headquarters in Wendouree, Thomas helped realise the company’s objectives by setting the scope of its Smart Enough™ Factory project and assisting in the creation of dashboards to better visualise business operations. As SEM General Manager Mark Thomas noted, “The SEF program allowed us to develop a realtime problem-solving solution to the visibility of materials within our manufacturing plant, as well as providing critical information to our project supervisors on the status of such materials.”

Following his internship, Thomas accepted an offer from SEM to work with them in a part-time capacity while completing his mechatronic engineering studies. This outcome is a fantastic case study of the benefits of joint investment in Australia’s future sovereign industrial workforce and capability. For Mark Thomas, the takeaway for other Smart Enough™ Factory participants is clear: “I would recommend any participant company to consider what an intern like Thomas can contribute to your organisation.”