Hunting for new bioactive natural products from Australian rainforest and desert plants
Humans have utilised plants since the dawn of time for therapeutic purposes. Many important and well-known drugs (e.g. taxol, morphine) come from plants. Endemic Australian rainforest and desert plants have yielded many new and bioactive natural products, but remain under-investigated. This project will result in the purification and characterization of new bioactive compounds, and that will impact biodiscovery.
Primary supervisor: A/Prof. Rohan Davis
Other supervisor: Prof. Ian Tietjen (Wistar Institute), Prof. Robin Gasser (Melbourne Uni), Prof. Colleen Nelson (Queensland University of Technology), A/Prof. James St. John
To apply: Contact A/Prof Rohan Davis with your CV at r.davis@griffith.edu.au
Use of natural product scaffolds in the generation of novel chemical libraries for drug discovery
Natural products display chemical complexity and diversity and they inherently interact with biomolecules (e.g. proteins, DNA), making them an ideal source of unique scaffolds for screening library synthesis. This medicinal chemistry project will generate unique biodiscovery libraries that will be fully characterised using spectroscopic methods before being screened in anti-infective, anti-cancer, or ion channel functional assays.
Primary supervisor: A/Prof. Rohan Davis
Other supervisor: Prof. Ian Tietjen (Wistar Institute), Prof. Robin Gasser (Melbourne Uni), Prof. Colleen Nelson (Queensland University of Technology), Dr. Linlin Ma
To apply: Contact A/Prof Rohan Davis with your CV at r.davis@griffith.edu.au
Discovery of new anti-infective drugs from the sea
Nature provides unlimited inspiration for innovation in the pharmaceutical and agrochemical sector. The Nobel Prize-winning discovery of the anti-parasitic drugs avermectin and artemisinin has renewed interest in exploring natural products for new anti-infective drugs. This project will result in the identification, semi-synthesis and full characterisation of new molecules that display anti-viral, anti-microbial or anti-parasitic activity.
Primary supervisor: A/Prof. Rohan Davis
Other supervisor: Prof. Ian Tietjen (Wistar Institute), Prof. Robin Gasser (Melbourne Uni), Prof. Tony Carroll
To apply: Contact A/Prof Rohan Davis with your CV at r.davis@griffith.edu.au