Professional Associations
- BSc (Hons) Melb 1977; PhD Melb 1981; FRACI, CChem
- Cancer Council Research Fellow, University of Oxford 1981-83
- Reader in Chemistry 1997-Present
- 1999 Nagai Medal for contributions to Medicinal Chemistry
- 2005 Monash Industry Engagement Award
- Coordinator of Postgraduate Studies 1996-2001
- VCAA VCE Chemistry Curriculum Development Committee 2005-6
Teaching Commitments
General, organic, medicinal, industrial and bio-organic chemistry level 1-4 courses taught with new courses developed in:
- Advanced asymmetric synthesis
- Carbohydrate and alicyclic chemistry
- Natural products chemistry
- Retrosynthetic analysis
- Medicinal chemistry
- Industrial organic chemistry
- Bio-organic chemistry
Research Areas
Organic synthesis
- Total Synthesis. Current targets include: The Pervilleines, the Salvinorins, the Pamaycins, the steroids and the Abietanes.
- Asymmetric catalysis based on our chiral benzoxazines.
- New imaging agents based on kangaroo paw pigments.
- New imaging agents based on cocaine.
- New auxiliaries for stereocontrolled oxidative coupling reactions.
Biological and medicinal chemistry
- Peptide-based vaccines for cancer.
- Beta-amino acid derived hybrid peptides as tools in biology.
- Structured beta-peptide templates for biomineralisation.
- New, super-stabilised beta-peptides as new materials for nanotechnology.
Because of the nature of our research we collaborate with a wide variety of groups including those of: Assoc. Prof. Marie-Isabel Aguilar and Professor Ian Smith (Biochemistry & Molecular Biology, Monash Univ.), Dr Anthony Purcell (Bio21, Univ. Melbourne), Dr Anthony Dear (Medicine, Monash Univ.), Dr Gilda Tachedjian (Burnet Institute).
Research Outcomes
- Continuous research funding from the ARC (Discovery, Linkage Industry, REIF and LEIF) and Monash Research Grants.
- Over 110 refereed publications and patents
- Over 200 lecture/poster presentations at local and international conferences
- Invitations to give lectures at many local and overseas universities and conferences
- Visiting professor in Denmark (DTU, 1990) and Sweden (Chalmers, 1990), Spain (Rovira I Virgili, 1990) and California (UC Davis,1997) and UK (Oxford, 2004).
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