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I am an immunologist determining how the immune system is regulated, with the aim of preventing diseases such as asthma, type 1 diabetes and multiple sclerosis caused by dysregulated immune responses.
MEDICINAL CHEMISTRY LED DISCOVERY OF NEW TREATMENTS FOR HUMAN AFRICAN TRYPANOSOMIASIS AND BETA-THALASSEMIA
Funder
National Health and Medical Research Council
Funding Amount
$636,524.00
Summary
I am a medicinal chemist interested in finding new treatments for sleeping sickness, a parasitic disease, and the blood diseases sickle cell anaemia and beta-thalassemia. After testing more than 80,000 compounds, we have discovered some promising starting points for drug discovery. These so-called “screening hits” are too weak to be useful but I hope to use my medicinal chemistry expertise to make these more potent, more selective, and hence therapeutically useful.
Therapeutic And Diagnostic Approaches For The Neurodegenerative Diseases
Funder
National Health and Medical Research Council
Funding Amount
$804,106.00
Summary
Diseases of the brain such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease cause enormous socio-economic harm to Australia. They are a major cause of disability and the burden associated with mental illness is predicted to grow by almost 50% over the coming decade. Therefore there is an urgent need to develop new approaches to identify and treat these diseases. This Fellowship will be dedicated to creating new diagnostic methods and treatments for these diseases
Next Generation Relaxin Molecular Probes And Therapeutics
Funder
National Health and Medical Research Council
Funding Amount
$763,845.00
Summary
The peptide hormone relaxin is poised to be the first new treatment for acute heart failure in more than 40 years. However, like other therapeutic peptides, it has a very short duration of action due to its rapid clearance by the body. My work will utilize powerful medicinal chemistry methods to develop new analogues of relaxin that have much longer action by complexing it with sugar or making relaxin polymers. I will also produce smaller relaxin analogues that will be cheaper to manufacture.
Peptides (mini proteins) have outstanding potential as new drugs for cancer, pain and many other diseases, but their potential has not been realised so far because peptides tend to be unstable in the body. I have discovered a new class of peptides that are ultra-stable and have very favourable pharmaceutical properties. I will use these peptides to develop a new generation of drugs that are more potent and with fewer side effects than traditional drugs.
Modulating Protein-Protein Interactions In Disease
Funder
National Health and Medical Research Council
Funding Amount
$863,910.00
Summary
Most diseases are driven by protein-protein interactions often with few/no greasy pockets to fit small molecule drugs. Innovative approaches to new drugs are needed for these proteins. This project combines chemistry, biochemistry and pharmacology to create new drug leads, new knowledge on drug action and disease development at gene, protein, cell, animal levels, and aims to trial new drug leads in preclinical and eventually clinical tests in inflammatory and metabolic diseases, pain and cancer.
Small Molecule Therapeutics: From Infectious And Parasitic Diseases To Cancers
Funder
National Health and Medical Research Council
Funding Amount
$763,845.00
Summary
I will lead a team of medicinal chemists to discover better treatments of diseases focused in two major domains. On one hand, I will discover new drugs to treat certain parasitic diseases such as Sleeping Sickness, Chagas disease and malaria, all caused by protozoal parasites. On the other hand, I will discover new drugs to treat certain cancers, in particular acute myeloid leukemia and Burkitt’s lymphoma, caused by dysfunction of certain types of enzymes called histone acetyltransferases.
This research draws together my expertise in medicinal chemistry, biochemistry, pharmacology and virology to design and develop new compounds that we can use to interrogate and regulate human and viral proteins that cause disease. Protein, cell and animal studies relevant to major 21st century health burdens (such as inflammatory, infectious and metabolic diseases, cancer, pain and viral infections) will provide important new information on mechanisms of disease development and drug action.