MIPS Linkage project success

Congratulations to the eight MIPS researchers who were successful in obtaining ARC Linkage grants.

A three year grant attracting $318 000 via the ARC Linkage project scheme has been awarded to MIPS scientists Dr Ben Boyd and Dr Ian Larson (Drug delivery, disposition and dynamics) in association with collaborators Professor David Cahill, School of Life and Environmental Sciences, Deakin University and Phillip Hay from Nufarm as the collaborating partner organisation. The research project is titled, Nanostructured Liquid Crystal Particles as Next Generation Agricultural Bioactive Delivery Systems and aims to understand the interaction of novel self assembled particles with surfaces, with a view to optimising their potential utility as topical delivery systems, with a focus on agricultural application on plants.

Dr Ben Capuano  and Professor Peter Scammells (Medicinal chemistry and drug action) have been awarded a three year grant attracting $123 420 via the ARC Linkage project scheme. They will collaborate with Dr Neil Miller and Professor Paul Chapman at GlaxoSmithKline Centre for Cognitive and Neurodegenerative Disorders (Singapore). The research project is titled, The Synthesis and Pharmacological Evaluation of Novel Bivalent Dopamine D2 and Adenosine A2A Ligands for the Treatment of Parkinson's Disease and aims to investigate the use of rationally designed heterobivalent ligands to simultaneously target heterodimeric G protein-coupled receptors to alleviate the symptoms of this devastating neurodegenerative disease.

A three year grant attracting $174 420 via the ARC Linkage project scheme has been awarded to MIPS scientists Professor Peter Scammells and Dr Ben Capuano (Medicinal chemistry and drug action) in association with collaborator Dr Campbell Scott from GlaxoSmithKline (Port Fairy, Victoria) as the collaborating partner organization. The research project is titled, Applications of the Polonovski Reaction in the Synthesis of Bioactive Opiates and aims to address the development of improved processes for the large scale preparation of semi synthetic pharmaceutical opiates in support of one of Australia's important export industries.  Furthermore, a greater understanding of the structure activity relationships of noscapine will make a contribution to the overall search for improved anticancer agents.

Dr Martin Scanlon, Dr Jamie Simpson (Medicinal chemistry and drug action) Professor Roger Nation (Drug delivery, disposition and dynamics) and Professor Bill Charman secured $600 000 over three years for their project, Targeting virulence of Pseudomonas aeruginosa by inhibiting oxidative protein folding and aims to develop inhibitors of an enzyme that catalyses the formation of disulfide bonds in secreted proteins. This enzyme is required for virulence of P.aeruginosa and contributes to its pathogenicity. Our objective is to use fragment-based drug design as an approach to identify compounds which bind to this enzyme, inhibit oxidative protein folding and reduce P.aeruginosa virulence.