Projects

Our available projects revolve around the major lab themes:

1. The core processes of sperm construction and function
2. Understanding the genetic causes of male infertility

CURRENT PROJECTS – get in contact now for 2025 Honours, Masters and PhD:

 

Title: Investigating the role of a novel gene in spermatogenesis and male fertility.
Location: Bio21 Institute
Supervisors: Dr. Brendan Houston, Prof. Moira O’Bryan
Contact: moira.obryan@unimelb.edu.au
Project type: Hons, MSc or PhD project

Background and Project Description
Male infertility is a common condition that affects at least 7% of men and is often caused by genetic factors. In line with the variety of cellular processes involved in sperm production, the testis expresses around 17,000 genes and the role of many of these is unknown. As part of a collaborative role in the International Male Infertility Genomics Consortium, we have identified genetic variants in several genes to be a likely cause of infertility in several men who do not produce sperm.

This project will involve fertility ‘phenotyping’ of knockout males using a standard pipeline and expert training available in the Male Infertility and Germ Cell Biology lab. You will assess whether knockout males are infertile and validate the knockout model. The student will also define the consequences of gene loss on the histology of the testis and male germ cells, daily sperm production and sperm function, if they are present. You will also define the localisation of the gene of interest in the wild type testis.

 

Title: Inter-species differences in sperm structure.
Location: Bio21 Institute
Supervisors: Dr Jessica Dunleavy, Dr. Brendan Houston, Prof. Moira O’Bryan
Contact: jessica.dunleavy@unimelb.edu.au
Project type: MSc project

Background and Project Description
Sperm structure varies greatly between species. The reason for, and the consequences of, these differences are poorly understood. Such differences occur in the sperm head, and the tail including in the mitochondrial sheath. In sperm, mitochondria are contained with the midpiece and separated from the remainder of the cell where they generate energy for sperm function, including for sperm tail motility.

This project will involve an investigation of the sperm structure at a three-dimensional level. This will include an analysis of sperm head shape, the mitochondrial sheath structure and the sperm tail as a whole and comparisons across species (mammals, fish, insects, etc.) using scanning and transmission electron microscopy. Collectively, this will allow insights into species differences in sperm structure and function and may feed into our understanding of the consequences of differences in evolutionary pressures.

 

Other areas of interest:

Investigating the role of the cytoskeleton in spermatogenesis.
Email jessica.dunleavy@unimelb.edu.au for more info

Characterising novel conditional spermiogenesis drivers in Drosophila melanogaster
Email brendan.houston@unimelb.edu.au for more info