Co-supervisors: Dr Leonie Walter (Lifeblood), Dr Alexandra George and Prof Peter Meikle
Brief overview
Pasteurised donor human milk (donor milk) is used in Australia to reduce the risk of necrotising enterocolitis in very preterm and very low birthweight infants when mother’s own milk is unavailable. However, donor milk lacks some of the nutritive and bioactive properties of maternal milk, partly due to pasteurisation. Emerging evidence suggests that minor lipid classes like ether lipids, which are enriched in long-chain polyunsaturated fatty acids, may influence infant growth and immunity. This study will analyse the lipid profile of donor milk, using liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry, focusing on ether lipids and how their abundance is affected by donor characteristics and pasteurisation.
Research objectives
- Perform advanced lipidomic profiling on donor milk.
- Assess the impact of Holder pasteurisation on the donor milk lipidome.
Your role and opportunities
You will drive this project, gaining hands-on experience in advanced lipidomics and translational human research. You will be trained in mass spectrometry workflows from experimental design through to data interpretation, gaining exposure to both wet-lab and computational approaches. This includes lipid identification, quantification, quality control metrics, and statistical modelling.
The project offers a unique opportunity to work within a leading metabolomics research environment at the Baker Institute, in collaboration with Australian Red Cross Lifeblood’s Human Milk Bank. You will gain insight into how laboratory discoveries can translate into clinical and public health practice.
This project is ideally suited to a motivated Honours student in biomedical science, biochemistry, nutrition, or a related field who is interested in analytical chemistry, metabolism, and/or early life health research. This project will be conducted at the Baker Heart and Diabetes Institute in Melbourne.
Why this project?
Early-life nutrition shapes lifelong health and disease risk. By investigating how milk bank processing alters the lipid composition of donor milk, you will contribute to research aimed at improving nutrition for some of the most vulnerable infants in our healthcare system. Join a dynamic, multidisciplinary team working at the interface of analytical chemistry, metabolism, and neonatal health.