Media Releases
IMB staff and students make an impact
22 December 2017
Cooper Group Senior Research Officer Dr Avril Robertson, has been awarded the 2017 IMB Impact Award for Leadership. Avril was described as a brilliant mentor with a positive influence on her students. Congratulations Avril.
PET project to improve imaging for Parkinson’s drug assessment
18 December 2017
A University of Queensland PhD student will spend 2018 undertaking research and training in sophisticated imaging techniques to better understand how promising drug candidates enter the brain. James Hill, supervised by Dr Avril Robertson and Professor Matt Cooper at the Institute for Molecular Bioscience, has been awarded the Fulbright Queensland Postgraduate Scholarship to assess how well promising Parkinson’s disease drugs cross the blood-brain barrier.
At the cutting edge of medical research
16 September 2016
Shetland woman Dr Avril Robertson, daughter of Jim Robertson and Barbara Henry, finds herself standing at the forefront of research which may provide treatment for a range of inflammatory diseases. Her research in medicinal chemistry at The University of Queensland has recently received commercial backing, attracting an investment of 15 million euros. This funding will be used to support an Ireland-based start-up business which was founded on the back of the promising research into anti-inflammatory molecules by The University of Queensland and Trinity College Dublin. Inflazome’s goal is to produce treatments to combat inflammatory diseases such as arthritis, asthma, Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s and MS. From Australia she spoke to KEEGAN MURRAY via a Skype call.
So long, superbugs – crowdsourcing is here
12 September 2016
By creating the world’s first molecule bank, UQ scientists are working with industry and institutional partners to crowdsource antibiotic compounds, aiming to seek out new antibiotics and prevent the proliferation of drug-resistant superbugs.
Resistance isn’t futile – how to tackle drug-resistant superbugs
19 July 2015
Low profit margins and the difficulty of finding new drugs has led to big pharma shutting down its antibiotics programmes. But now researchers are adopting new approaches to tackle drug-resistant superbugs
Crowdsourcing compounds to tackle antibiotic resistance
18 June 2015
Chemists around the world are being called on to donate samples of novel compounds they have synthesised to a crowdsourcing project that aims to find new antibiotics.
The Community for Open Antimicrobial Drug Discovery (CO-ADD) was set up by scientists at the University of Queensland in Brisbane, Australia, in response to the growing problem of antimicrobial resistance.
New antibiotics needed to fight drug-resistant superbugs, Queensland researchers warn
18 June 2015
Researchers at the University of Queensland are embarking on a global search for the next new antibiotics which they say is a race against time to fight drug-resistant superbugs.
Superbugs: What are they and how are they treated?
17 June 2015
Australian health officials are again on alert following infections by an antibiotic-resistant superbug known as KPC.
UQ scientists lead the search for better Legionella treatments
7 June 2013
Scientists at The University of Queensland’s Institute for Molecular Bioscience are leading the way in seeking new drugs to give medical experts better ways of preventing infection by Legionella bacteria and treating legionnaires disease.
IMB researcher fights TB with NHMRC funding
18 December 2012
Professor Matt Cooper from the Institute for Molecular Bioscience (IMB) has been awarded $513,630 by the National Health and Medical Research Council to develop treatments for superbug strains of tuberculosis that are resistant to current drugs.
Welcome Trust Annual Review 2011
Membrane-targeted antibiotic
"The Wellcome Trust Seeding Drug Discovery programme facilitates early-stage small-molecule drug discovery. An award to researchers at the University of Queensland is helping them to develop a new antibiotic that should be able to target a number of drug-resistant bacterial infections more effectively than
current antibiotics.
Their plan is to enhance an existing antibiotic, giving it the ability to target certain bacterial cell membranes rather than human cells. This should increase the drug's potency and, it is hoped, reduce the likelihood of adverse reactions." Page 14, Welcome Trust Annual Review 2011
$5M for researchers to fight superbugs
23 May 2011 (227KB PDF)
A new treatment for 'superbugs' could be developed in Australia after a University of Queensland researcher received $5 million in funding to modify an existing antibiotic.
Perfect score for novel antibiotics researcher
16 December 2010 (76KB PDF)
A student who used his honours year to investigate a potential drug to treat antibiotic-resistant bacteria has been named The University of Queensland's (UQ) Valedictorian for the Bachelor of Science degree.
Researchers link up to develop dengue test
14 July 2010 (38KB PDF)
University of Queensland researchers will team with Alere Australia to develop a cheap, simple test for diagnosing dengue fever in its early stages.
10 million for IMB research into superbug drugs
2 November 2009 (86KB PDF)
Researchers from the Institute for Molecular Bioscience have won nearly $11 million in grants from the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) for 19 projects ranging from developing drugs targeting superbugs to studying disorders of sexual development and examining brain tumours.
Nanotechnology used to probe effectiveness of antibiotics
4 February 2009 (84KB PDF)
A group of researchers led by scientists from the London Centre for Nanotechnology, in collaboration with a University of Queensland researcher, have discovered a way of using tiny nano-probes to help understand how an antibiotic is effective against bacteria.
UQ wins 100 percent of prestigious health fellowships
25 September 2007 (93KB PDF)
University of Queensland researchers have won both of the National Health and Medical Research Council's (NHMRC) 2008 Australia Fellowships, worth a total of $8 million.