2025: Partnering for impact

In 2025, founding Director Professor Abigail Elizur continued to shape CBI’s strategic trajectory, welcoming Professor Scott Cummins as Co-Director, and commencing implementation of the 2025-27 Research Plan.

The Research Plan provides a focused platform for aligning CBI’s people, partners, infrastructure and complimentary capabilities across the Centre’s five key research themes. The strength of this strategic approach was reflected in the Centre’s 2025 research performance outputs, including more than $4.5 million in competitive research funding, over 130 research papers published, and 11 PhD candidates completed.

Breakthroughs in koala conservation

Building on years of sustained effort, 2025 was a landmark year for the Centre’s koala conservation research, with significant achievements in both disease management and wildlife monitoring.

CBI’s Chlamydia Research Group, led by Professor Peter Timms, achieved a world-first milestone with approval by the Australian Pesticides and Veterinary Medicines Authority (APVMA) of its chlamydia vaccine for koalas. The approval attracted extensive national and international media attention, showcasing the significance of this research to audiences around the world. The vaccine was also nominated in the ‘The Problem Solver’ category of the 2025 Universities Australia Shaping Australia Awards. This recognition a celebrated more than a decade of collaborative, impact-driven research that has successfully translated scientific discovery into a practical disease management and conservation solution for one of Australia’s most iconic and endangered species.

CBI’s Detection Dogs for Conservation group, led by Associate Professor Romane Cristescu, secured over $1.7 milllion in new research funding from sources including the Australian Government, South East Queensland’s natural resource management body, and local government partners. This funding will support fauna research focused on protecting and monitoring threatened species, assessing native vegetation environmental offset conditions, investigating factors contributing to chlamydial disease in koalas from different populations, and improving understanding of the broader impact of reducing the chlamydial disease threat for koalas.

Delivering practical outcomes for communities, industry, and the environment

A key focus throughout the year was strengthening engagement with research development corporations and cooperative research centres, with the goal of expanding industry partnerships, accelerating research translation and maximising impact across national priority sectors. This strategic emphasis builds on the Centre’s strong foundation of industry-aligned research, and supports its commitment to delivering practical outcomes for communities, industry and the environment.

• CBI members were investigators on five active Fisheries Research and Development Corporation (FRDC) projects, delivered in partnership with the Queensland Department of Agriculture and Fisheries (DAF), New South Wales Department of Primary Industries and Regional Development (DPIRD), fisheries and catchment management authorities, and international aquaculture institutes and farmers associations. These projects are advancing genetics, genomics, and breeding programs for Macquarie Perch, Mulloway, Sydney Rock Oysters, Queensland’s native rock oysters, and the black tiger prawn.
• Associate Professor Volker Herzig and Professor Scott Cummins secured funding from the Grains Research Development Corporation (GRDC) to complete a proof-of-concept using arachnid venom peptides for snail biocontrol.
• Professor Abigail Elizur continued to lead UniSC’s largest Marine Bioproducts Cooperative Research Centre (MBCRC) project ‘Exploring Health related Bioproducts from Sydney Rock Oysters’, in partnership with the New South Wales DPIRD and Flinders University. This project has supported one Honours and two PhD students, who each received an MBCRC scholarship. In 2025, Professor Elizur continued to develop our work with MBCRC by submitting an application with industry partner Sustainable Solutions Hub to investigate the use of marine algae as bio stimulants for plant growth promotion.
• The Centre for Bioinnovation actively engaged in the Regional University Industry Collaboration (RUIC) Program – a Queensland Government initiative delivered by CSIRO – that supports collaboration between regional industry and university researchers. CBI members successfully received RUIC Program funding for the following projects:
  • In partnership with the Hope Vale Foundation, led by Associate Professor Tomer Ventura, to establish a Cherabin (also known as the Australian giant freshwater prawn) Hatchery Protocol to support the development of commercial aquaculture farming opportunities across northern Australia.
  • In partnership with Vermin Tannery, Associate Professor Tianfang Wang, to explore agricultural applications of cane toad byproducts, such as fertiliser.

Highlights in human and animal health and disease diagnostic and therapeutic research

• CBI’s Chlamydia Research Group, led by Professor Peter Timms, achieved world-first approval by the Australian Pesticides and Veterinary Medicines Authority (APVMA) of its chlamydia vaccine for koalas.

• CBI’s Pathogen-Omics Research Group, led by Associate Professor Erin Price and Associate Professor Derek Sarovich, contributed to continuing clinical trials in partnership with Sunshine Coast Health, The Prince Charles Hospital, and other providers, including pharma-led drug treatment studies and a Merck Sharp & Dohme funded observational study of novelcystic fibrosis and non-cystic fibrosis bronchiectasis treatments.

• CBI’s Deputy Director, Associate Professor Joanne Macdonald, progressed the development and trial of a rapid-testing system to quickly diagnose and limit the spread of common pig diseases, potentially saving farmers thousands of dollars on vet bills, feed, and lost stock. In partnership with Australian startup BioCifer, the project received funding from the Commonwealth Government’s Australia’s Economic Accelerator (AEA) Ignite program enabling trials to begin at Queensland piggeries.

Making a difference: Our research in action

Saving the koala and revolutionising wildlife health through vaccine development

Koalas in eastern Australia are endangered, with rates of potentially lethal Chlamydia pecorum infection – which can causes infertility, blindness and serious health complications, and is a major driver of koala population decline – reaching up to 60 percent across Queensland and New South Wales. Susceptibility is further heightened by Koala retrovirus (KoRV), which impairs immune function. Disease prevention and management tools are therefore critical to supporting koala conservation.

Since 2011, the Centre’s Chlamydia Research Group has pioneered research into koala chlamydial disease and KoRV, investigating disease burden, immune response, transmission dynamics and viral diversity. Led by Professor Peter Timms, with senior researchers Dr Martina Jelocnik, Dr Samuel Phillips and Dr Nina Pollak, the Group has secured more than $3 million in funding from federal and state governments, wildlife organisations and biotechnology companies to develop, test and translate a recombinant protein-based chlamydia vaccine into a veterinary-approved product.

Working in partnership with 10 Queensland koala rescue and rehabilitation organisations, in 2023 researchers completed Phase III field trials involving more than 1,000 koalas. The trials showed a 64 percent reduction in chlamydial mortality among vaccinated populations, highlighting the vaccine’s potential to prevent, manage and reverse disease, which is critical to turning around population decline. In June 2025, the vaccine achieved a world-first milestone when it received Australian Pesticides and Veterinary Medicines Authority (APVMA) approval for use in wild koala populations.

The Group’s research has also informed conservation policy and practice at national, state and local levels, including the SEQ Koala Conservation Strategy, the Moreton Bay Koala Plan and the 2023 Senate inquiry into faunal extinction. Notably, this work also informed the Australian Government Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water (DCEEW)’s 2025 National Guidance for Vaccination of Koalas against Chlamydia, which provides an evidence-based framework for wildlife managers, veterinarians, conservation groups and government agencies to inform koala vaccination programs.

Detection dogs advancing non-invasive monitoring for wildlife conservation

Effective wildlife conservation depends on the ability to accurately detect and monitor species and environmental threats, particularly for animals that are elusive or difficult to survey. Conventional monitoring approaches can be labour-intensive, costly, and often inefficient in lowdensity populations. These limitations reduce the ability of conservation managers to make informed decisions about species distribution, population status, and biosecurity risks, particularly in threatened ecosystems where early detection is critical.

The Centre’s Detection Dogs for Conservation (DDC) group is the only university research group that rescues, trains, tests and deploys detection dogs to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of wildlife monitoring for conservation in Australia. Led by Associate Professor Romane Cristescu, with key researchers Dr Katrin Hohwieler, Dr Carmen Piza Roca, Dr Courtney Waugh, and Dr Kataro Takano, DDC research leverages the canine sense of smell to detect biological targets such as faecal matter (scat), carcasses, invasive species, and disease indicators across diverse ecological environments. The right dog can be trained to track anything that emits an odour, and DDC dogs are currently detecting and helping rare animals including koalas, greater gliders, and quolls. DDC also uses technologies (such as heat-monitoring drones), tracking devices and mobile applications, along with non-invasive molecular methods such as genetics, pathogens, hormones and miRNA.

In 2025, DDC surveyed 12,578 hectares, detected 733 koalas, and delivered 194 dog surveys, 127 drone surveys and 148 radiotracking surveys. The group also collected 992 wild koala samples to better understand koala health, genetics, diet, and their microbiome. 

Community engagement is a strong focus of the group’s work. In 2025, DDC presented more than 50 talks, koala walks, demonstrations, and training workshops. DDC has also developed a mobile app that connects via Bluetooth to koala tracking tags and allows community members to provide information about koalas they spot in the wild, with the goal of increasing koala protection in urban areas.

Resources

Download the report (PDF)