Harrison is a medicinal chemist with a research focus on bioactive peptides as therapeutics and molecular tools. He completed his Honours and PhD at UQ in the School of Chemistry and Molecular Biosciences where he developed synthetic peptide-based vaccine candidates against a range of targets including Group A Streptococcus and small molecule substances of abuse in the laboratory of Professor Istvan Toth. He is now a postdoctoral research fellow in the Muttenthaler group at IMB where he is involved in several programs of peptide-based drug discovery and pharmacological probe development.