for the past eight months I’ve been
participating in a project led by the
University of the Sunshine Coast has
rented to provide an insight into future
jobs career options and opportunities
for today’s youth I’ve had the privilege
to be working with the least Taylor
brown who’s currently completing a PhD
at the University I’ve been assisting
her with a PhD project on the world
known disease chlamydia see outside the
company of that infect humans the range
of other chlamydial pathogens that are
associated disease in animals several of
which the ones that I’ve been working
with in fact fish how many of pathogens
have been described in over 90 fish
species both fresh and saltwater some of
the more common species affected include
bass yellowtail kingfish barramundi
salmon and trout the comedy reciting the
gills of the fish enclosed enlargement
of the gill epithelial cells which makes
breathing extremely difficult and the
most cases leads to fatality this poses
a major problem in both aquaculture and
natural ecosystems concerning the
balance of the ecosystem and the
economics of the fish industry with this
project I’ve been able to contribute to
the knowledge and understanding of these
chlamydial pathogens as well as their
range of hopes so you might have
recognized some of these common fish
products and mazed well these here are
the real deal these are the beautiful
fish that I’ve been working with over
the span of our project the two on the
side of southern bluefin tuna and the
one in the middle is a copiar these are
both local Australian fish which provide
amazing recreational fishing as well as
farm production and these beautiful fish
are in danger of chlamydial infection
and is so important a ver saved for the
project we obtained our fish samples
from local agricultural farms and screen
them for chlamydia by extracting the DNA
from the gills detecting a fragment of
the chlamydial chain we establish at the
southern bluefin tuna samples were
negative for chlamydia however the cobia
were positive so what we able to do with
this information we’ve been able to
the community impact the local community
but establishing the pathogen affecting
the local agricultural farm they can put
in place methods to prevent mortality of
their produce and hopefully this project
will influence the gradual discovery and
prevention of disease not only in fish
species but every chlamydial host
including humans overall this project
was a huge learning curve and it made me
start thinking seriously about my future
career options it provided me with an
important insight into a real science
career a life of a pace of life outside
of school and has given me inspiration
and passion for my future I believe this
was a great project and I highly
recommend that other schools begin
implementing projects similar to ours
thank you
[Applause] you