Dr Kellie L Tuck

Research Areas

• Research into the area of chemical biology, an exciting area at the interface between chemistry and biology. This area is interdisciplinary and involves organic synthesis, enzymology and molecular biology.
• These projects involve organic synthesis of potential inhibitors.
• Site-directed mutagenesis of the particular enzyme system.
• Screen of potential inhibitors with ligand docking computational programs and by NMR spectroscopy.
• Testing of inhibitors against the desired enzyme system.
• A collaborative project with Dr Peter Duggan at CSIRO explores the synthesis of peptide mimics of the cone shell toxin, w -conotoxin GVIA. GVIA has non-addictive analgesic properties but is not suitable for use as a drug because of its very strong binding to the calcium channel. The synthesis of lead compounds is being attempted to incorporate more “drug like” properties and to probe their binding modes to N-type calcium channels.