Novel Soluble Guanylate Cyclase Activators For Pulmonary Artery Hypertension
Funder
National Health and Medical Research Council
Funding Amount
$474,087.00
Summary
Pulmonary hypertension (elevated blood pressure in the lungs) is a life-threatening condition with few treatment options. We have recently identified a new class of drug that may improve blood vessel function in the lungs and thereby provide a new drug for the management of this group of patients.
Combating Giardiasis By Investigating New Potent Compound Series As Leads For Improved Treatment Options
Funder
National Health and Medical Research Council
Funding Amount
$776,028.00
Summary
Giardia parasites infect ~1 billion people globally and are responsible for significant morbidity and disadvantage. There is no licensed vaccine and current treatment options are inadequate, resulting in poor compliance, treatment failures, rapid re-infection and drug resistance. New therapies are needed to combat this parasite and improve the health of millions world-wide. We will address this issue by investigating new drug candidates for the treatment of Giardia infections.
Development Of Fragment Hits Into Effective Antimalarials; Targeting Malaria Eradication
Funder
National Health and Medical Research Council
Funding Amount
$676,798.00
Summary
We have used a novel method that samples the diversity of natural products with a small sub-set of compounds, and observed direct interaction between these compounds and proteins important in the malaria parasite life cycle. This project will develop these identified active compounds towards the goal of producing a drug to fight stages of the malaria parasite’s life cycle that are not targeted by currently available antimalarial drugs.
Understanding Australia’s Drug Use: Prescription Psychotropics, Recreational Drugs And Novel Emerging Psychoactive Substances
Funder
National Health and Medical Research Council
Funding Amount
$763,409.00
Summary
Australians are consuming record levels of drugs that affect their mood and behaviour, both prescribed and illicit. They are also consuming an increasing array of novel synthetic drugs, the effects of which are largely unknown. Professor Iain McGregor engages in innovative research that examines the drugs we take, their effects on the brain, and their risks and benefits. His team also develops new medications that may become future treatments for anxiety, depression and addictions.
Developing Novel Agents To Prevent Tumour Recurrence In Glioblastoma
Funder
National Health and Medical Research Council
Funding Amount
$1,089,561.00
Summary
Glioblastoma is a form of brain cancer that is currently incurable. We have discovered that switching-off an enzyme called KDM4 (using 'KDM4 inhibitors') improves chemotherapy outcomes with new drugs also discovered in our laboratory. This project will examine a novel drug combination treatment for glioblastoma patients and generate evidence for initiation of clinical trials. This could initiate a novel therapy that could significantly extend patients' lives.
OctapeptinX Potentiators To Treat XDR Gram-negative Infections
Funder
National Health and Medical Research Council
Funding Amount
$1,377,149.00
Summary
There is an urgent need for the development of new antibiotics to treat drug-resistant infections, with the World Health Organisation and other agencies warning of a critical threat to human health. Potentiators are drugs that help obsolete antibiotics regain activity against resistant bacteria. We aim to develop a novel class of potentiators, the octapeptins, to resurrect the activity of old antibiotics so they can be used to treat infections caused by highly-resistant Gram-negative bacteria.
Discovery Of New And Better Treatments For Human African Trypanosomiasis
Funder
National Health and Medical Research Council
Funding Amount
$837,615.00
Summary
Sleeping sickness, or human African trypanosomiasis, is present in 36 countries where there are 60 million people at risk of infection, with 50,000-70,000 new cases and 48,000 deaths per annum. Transmitted by the bite of the tsetse fly, this disease is caused by the protozoan parasite Trypanosoma brucei, and without treatment, death is inevitable. We have discovered some compounds that weakly inhibit T.brucei and the aim of this project is to make them potent enough to become drug candidates.
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.
In 2013 there were ~200 million clinical cases of malaria, causing ~600,000 deaths. All antimalarial drugs are now associated with malaria parasite resistance. Thus, new therapies are urgently needed, including new drugs to prevent this disease. We have made the exciting discovery that an existing antimalarial drug can kill malaria parasites in a unique, previously unknown, manner. Here, we will investigate how this occurs and develop new drug candidates for malaria prevention.