Development Of Carbohydrate Based Self-adjuvanting Vaccine Delivery System
Funder
National Health and Medical Research Council
Funding Amount
$311,647.00
Summary
The world is in a need for effective vaccines for the treatment/prevention of a range of currently occurring diseases. The aim of this project is to develop sugar/lipid-based delivery systems by revolutionary new chemo-enzymatic technology. Expected outcomes of the project will be numerous biologically active vaccine candidates and novel technologies which will lead to effective therapeutic products.
Improving Synthetic Methodology To Prepare Pre-clinical Analogues Of Human Insulin
Funder
National Health and Medical Research Council
Funding Amount
$457,708.00
Summary
The glucose regulatory hormone, insulin, remains the only treatment for type I diabetes and up to 30% of type II diabetes, both of which are among the world’s fastest growing chronic diseases today. Because insulin, if taken orally, would be broken down quickly, it has usually been given by injection. This project will develop novel chemical methods for the efficient preparation of novel insulin therapeutics with improved stability and oral bioavailability for prolonged treatment of patients.
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.
Chronic pain from damage to the nervous system is extremely debilitating and notoriously difficult to treat. The current drug of choice, gabapentin, has serious side effects and only works in two-thirds of patients. We have developed a drug, derived from sea snail venom, that exhibits ten times the activity of gabapentin. This proposal seeks to progress our drug to clinical trials and attract a commercial partner for its development into the market.
I am a peptide and protein chemist principally engaged in the study of the structure and function relationships of insulin-like peptides and the development of their therapeutic potential.
Developing Species-specific, Structure-targeting Peptides As A Novel Class Of Antibiotics
Funder
National Health and Medical Research Council
Funding Amount
$607,967.00
Summary
Multidrug, antibiotic resistance is a serious global threat. It is a real possibility that in the absence of new antibiotics, common infections could soon become untreatable. This project will develop a novel class of antibiotics that target the core structures of essential bacterial proteins. The successful outcome of this work will also aid the development of specific peptide-based inhibitors for numerous additional diseases, including viral and fungal infections and cancer.
Further Development Of The Clinical Potential Of H2 Relaxin
Funder
National Health and Medical Research Council
Funding Amount
$651,768.00
Summary
The hormone relaxin mediates cardiovascular and kidney changes during pregnancy. These important functions have led to its current use in clinical trials for the treatment of acute heart failure, a condition affecting millions of patients worldwide. However, there is an urgent need for a longer lasting form of relaxin for prolonged treatment of patients. Our studies will focus on understanding the blood breakdown of the peptide to lead to the design of longer lasting relaxin analogues.
Peptide Conjugates Of Splice-correcting Oligonucleotides For Enhanced In Vitro And In Vivo Delivery For Neuromuscular Disease Therapy.
Funder
National Health and Medical Research Council
Funding Amount
$332,347.00
Summary
Currently, there is no known cure for certain neuromuscular genetic disorders. However, recently identified synthetic DNA-type biomolecules have shown promising results in reversing such diseases in mice. These biomolecules cannot easily enter the cells in high enough quantity to elicit their beneficial effects. Therefore, this project will aim at identifying novel vecotrs that, when coupled to these biomolecules, are capable of delivering them into specific cell types as well as into the brain.
Development Of New Anticancer Drugs Using Sortase-mediated Ligation
Funder
National Health and Medical Research Council
Funding Amount
$618,274.00
Summary
There is a great need for new cancer treatments. We are developing cyclic peptides as the next generation of safe and effective cancer drugs. Cyclic peptides, unlike their linear counterparts, display high stability and oral bioavailability, as well as high solubility and negligible immune response. One of the hurdles is the cyclisation process and we aim to develop enzyme-mediated cyclisation as a convenient and cost effective method for cyclic peptide production.
The Contribution Of Upstream Open Reading Frames To The Eukaryotic Proteome
Funder
National Health and Medical Research Council
Funding Amount
$197,911.00
Summary
This project will investigate the novel idea that genomes of complex organisms (including human) 'double-dip' with many genes containing information for more than one protein. It will also examine if these small supernumary proteins have cell regulatory functions. If proved, it would significantly alter current views on the information content of higher vertebrate genomes. An understanding of the roles of these novel protein sequences may result in the development of new drugs.