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Emeritus Professor George Muscat
Group Leader, Cell and Developmental Biology DivisionEmeritus ProfessorInstitute for Molecular BioscienceResearcher profile is public:0Supervisor:Body:Highlights
Professor George Muscat is currently a Professorial and an NHMRC Principal Research Fellow (2014-18) at IMB, and an affiliate appointment in the Faculty of Medicine, The University of Queensland.
Professor Muscat completed undergraduate training at the University of Sydney, and was mentored by Professor Peter B. Rowe during the completion of his PhD program at the CMRI (1981-85).
He conducted his Postdoctoral Research under the guidance of Professor Larry Kedes at Stanford University, CA. (1985-88), and was subsequently appointed as an Assistant Professor of Research at the University of Southern California, Los Angeles (1989).
He joined The University of Queensland in 1990, and focused his research on understanding the molecular role of Nuclear Hormone Receptor signalling in breast cancer, diabetes, obesity and exercise.
Professor Muscat was a visiting scientist/sabbatical visitor at X-Ceptor Therapeutics, San Diego (2001), involved in a scientific collaboration with Metabolex, and a Guest Professor, Sahlgrenska Academy, The University of Gothenburg, (2014-15).
He has served as a member of: (i) the editorial boards of J. Biol. Chem., Endocrinology and Molecular Endocrinology, (ii) NHMRC Assigners Academy, NHMRC GRPs, NHMRC Research Fellowships Peer Review Panels, and (iii) National Breast Cancer Foundation Research Advisory Council.
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Emeritus Professor Paul Alewood
Group Leader, Chemistry and Structural Biology DivisionEmeritus ProfessorInstitute for Molecular BioscienceResearcher profile is public:0Supervisor:Body:Highlights
Paul Alewood graduated from the University of NSW before moving to the University of Calgary for his PhD. His early research interest was in classical organic chemistry, but the discovery in the mid 1970s of encephalins – short-chain amino acids produced in the body that have a similar effect to morphine – triggered an interest in protein and peptide chemistry.
He moved to Queensland, attracted by the state’s healthy populations of dangerous marine animals – cone snails, sea snakes and stone fish, to name a few. Such animals offer vast potential in the treatment of chronic pain, as their venom contains thousands of small peptides that target sensory nerve receptors.
He is the author of more than 300 publications and was a prime mover in establishing the Melbourne-based peptide company, Auspep, and Xenome, a spin-off biopharmaceutical company from the University of Queensland. More recently, he was a foundation scientist at Betabiotics, a joint venture company between IMB and CSIRO, and the founder of Elacor, a joint venture between the University of Queensland and the Baker Heart Research Institute, Victoria.
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Emeritus Professor Peter Koopman
Emeritus ProfessorInstitute for Molecular BioscienceResearcher profile is public:0Supervisor:Body:Highlights
Professor Koopman earned his PhD from the University of Melbourne in 1986 for research on stem cell differentiation. He moved to London soon afterwards for a postdoctoral appointment in the Mammalian Development Unit at the Medical Research Council, where he conducted medical analyses of mouse embryo development. During a second postdoc, with the National Institute for Medical Research, he was part of the team who isolated the mouse Y-chromosome gene (now known as SRY) and demonstrated its role in sex determination by reversing the sex of XX-chromosome mice. The discovery is widely regarded as one of the major achievements in molecular genetics of the 20th century.
In 1992 he took a role at The University of Queensland, and now heads a research team whose work focuses on genes that regulate embryonic development, with special emphasis on the molecular genetics of sex development, fertility, gonadal cancers and intersex conditions. He’s also extensively involved in research training, having co-founded the Australian Developmental Biology Workshop in 2001. The workshop is a training-ground for the next generation of developmental biologists in Australia and the Asia-Pacific region.
Between 2007 and 2012 he was a Federation Fellow of the ARC, and in 2008 was elected a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science.
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Emeritus Professor Mark Ragan
Emeritus ProfessorInstitute for Molecular BioscienceResearcher profile is public:0Supervisor:Body:Highlights
Mark Ragan is an Emeritus Professor at the Institute for Molecular Bioscience, The University of Queensland in Brisbane, Australia.
He was founding Head of IMB's former Division of Genomics & Computational Biology (2000-2014), founding Director of the Australian Research Council (ARC) Centre of Excellence in Bioinformatics (2003-2015), and co-founder of QFAB Bioinformatics.
Mark is a graduate of the University of Chicago (Biochemistry) and Dalhousie University (Biology). His 200+ peer-reviewed research publications in biochemistry, molecular biology, evolutionary biology, genomics, algorithmics, bioinformatics and computational biology have attracted more than 13500 citations.
Core technologies in his research group (integration of large bioscience data, scalable algorithms on trees and networks, bioinformatic workflows, high-performance and data-centric computing) were applied to problems of genome sequencing and de novo assembly, comparative evolutionary genomics, and inference of biomolecular networks particularly in the coral reef symbiont Symbiodinium, and in targeting therapies against DNA damage repair networks in familial breast cancer.
Mark was also involved in national and international infrastructure initiatives in genomics, computing, data and bioinformatics services.
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Emeritus Professor Michael Waters
Emeritus ProfessorInstitute for Molecular BioscienceResearcher profile is public:0Supervisor:- Higher degree by research (PhD) studentInstitute for Molecular Bioscience
- Senior Research Fellow - GLInstitute for Molecular Bioscience
- Emeritus ProfessorInstitute for Molecular Bioscience
Craik Group
Group Leader
Professor David Craik
UQ Laureate Fellow - GLInstitute for Molecular BioscienceResearcher profile is public:1Supervisor:Researcher biography:David Craik (AO, FRS, FAA) is in the Centre for Chemistry and Drug Discovery at the Institute for Molecular Bioscience, The University of Queensland, Australia. He discovered the cyclotide family of circular proteins and has characterized the structures of many animal toxins including conotoxins from cone snail venoms. He heads a research team of 35 researchers whose current work focuses on applications of circular proteins, drugs in plants, toxins and NMR in drug design.
He is author of over 810 scientific papers, including 14 in Nature publications (Nature/Nature Communications/Nature Neuoroscience/Nature Structural Biology/Nature Chemical Biology/Nature Chemistry/Scientific Reports/Nature Protocols, 1 in Science, 12 in PNAS, 9 in JACS, 3 in Chemical Reviews, and 16 in Angewandte Chemie. He has been elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society and a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science, appointed as an Officer (AO) of the Order of Australia and has received numerous awards for his research, including the Ralph F. Hirschmann Award from the American Chemical Society (2011), Ramaciotti Medal for Excellence in Biomedical Research (2014), GlaxoSmithKline Award for Research Excellence (2014), the Vincent du Vigneaud Award from the American Peptide Society (2015),the FAOBMB Award for Research Excellence (2015) and the Cathay Award from the Chinese Peptide Society (2018). He received the Australian Academy of Science David Craig Medal in 2023. He is an Honorary Professor of Jinan University, Guangzhou and has an Honorary Doctorate from Kalmar University in Sweden.
Biography
David Craik obtained his PhD in organic chemistry from La Trobe University in Melbourne, Australia and undertook postdoctoral studies at Florida State and Syracuse Universities before taking up a lectureship at the Victorian College of Pharmacy in 1983. He was appointed Professor of Medicinal Chemistry and Head of School in 1988. He moved to University of Queensland in 1995 to set up a new biomolecular NMR, held an Australian Research Council Laureate Fellow (2015-2020) and is currently a NHMRC Fellow, as well as Director of the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence in Peptide and Protein Science.
Key Discoveries
David Craik has made discoveries of new classes of proteins, generated new knowledge on their structure and function, and used this information to design and chemically re-engineer new classes of protein-based drug leads and agricultural pest control agents. In particular, his major achievements are:
- the discovery of cyclotides, the largest known family of circular proteins. As well as a circular backbone, cyclotides contain a knotted arrangement of cross-linking disulfide bonds, making them remarkably stable. His discovery of these proteins was sparked in part from anecdotal reports of medicinal practices in Africa where women make a tea from the plant Oldenlandia affinis by boiling it in water and sipping it during labour to accelerate child birth. He determined the structure of the bioactive component of this medicinal tea and found that it had an unprecedented head-to-tail cyclic peptide backbone combined with a cystine knot.
- the first structural and functional characterizations of prototypic circular proteins in higher organisms - Professor Craik was one of the first to recognize that other families of ribosomally synthesized cyclic peptides exist. As examples from bacteria and animals emerged, Professor Craik was at the forefront of their structural characterization, reporting the first structures of theta-defensins from animals and the threaded lasso peptide microcin J25 from bacteria, as well as new examples of cyclic peptides from plants.
- the development of artificially cyclized peptide toxins as drug leads – he developed an orally active peptide that is 100 times more potent than the leading clinically used drug for neuropathic pain.
Research Training
Professor Craik has trained more than 70 PhD students. He was awarded UQ's Research Supervision Excellence Award in 2007 on the basis of his mentoring and innovations in postgraduate training, including his "writing retreats" to mentor students and postdocs on science writing skills. He received the Institute for Molecular Bioscience Individual Leadership Award in 2019. He was awarded an honorary doctorate from Kalmar University, Sweden for his contributions to international student exchange programs, and is an Honorary Professor of Jinan University, Guangzhou.
Professional Activities
Professor Craik founded and chaired the 1st, 2nd and 3rd International Conferences on Circular Proteins (2009, 2012 and 2015) and was on the Scientific Program Committee for ISMAR 2021. He is on the Boards of six international journals, including Angewandte Chemie, ACS Chemical Biology, Chemical Biology and Drug Design, and ChemBioChem. He was on the Council of the American Peptide Society (2015-2021). He was the director two Brisbane-based biotech companies. He is on the Scientific Advisory Boards of James Cook University's Centre for Biodiscovery and Molecular Development of Therapeutics (BMDT), the University of Wollongong's Illawara Health and Medical Research Institute (IHMRI) and Enzytag. He conceived and supports two publicly accessible databases - Cybase on circular proteins (www.cybase.org.au), and conotoxins (www.conoserver.org).
Body:Highlights
Professor David Craik is a structural biologist who travels the world discovering new molecules in plants and animals. His area of expertise is peptides (mini-proteins). He is looking for peptides that could be effective treatments for a range of diseases or have useful applications as environmentally friendly agri-chemicals. He particularly likes to discover something in nature and then use molecular design to improve on it.
Professor Craik is best known for discovering a family of peptides with a unique circular structure, which he aptly named cyclotides. Cyclotides are super stable, which makes them desirable as drug leads. By re-engineering the structure of other peptides to mimic cyclotides, he is making potent and specific peptides orally active – creating the perfect drug. He is known internationally as the founder of this field of research.
He was the first person to take a peptide from a cone snail, a natural conotoxin, and re-engineer its structure to make it cyclic. By improving the strength of the molecule, he created a natural painkiller 100 times stronger than the current market leader gabapentin, and potentially with lower side effects. The drug is currently showing great promise in animal trials. This natural painkiller is the first time an orally active drug has resulted from an animal venom. In other applications Professor Craik’s methodology led to the commercialisation of an environmentally friendly insecticide.
Professor Craik is known internationally for his work in peptide-based drug design and sought after as a conference speaker on the topic.
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Researchers
Dr Sonia Troeira Henriques
IMB FellowAdjunct Associate ProfessorInstitute for Molecular BioscienceResearcher profile is public:0Supervisor:Body:Highlights
Dr Sónia Henriques research is focused on ‘breaching cell membranes with cell penetrating peptides’. This relates to the use of cyclic cell penetrating peptides to cross cell membranes. Cyclic cell penetrating peptides can be used as carriers to deliver macromolecules inside cells. We are applying this approach in three ways. Firstly, to design a new generation of drugs against intracellular targets to treat cancer. Secondly, to optimise peptides to treat infectious diseases caused by bacteria. Finally, as research tools to modulate functions within microorganisms (e.g. bacteria, algae).
Dr Henriques combines expertise on cyclic disulfide-rich peptides, cell-penetrating peptides, antimicrobial peptides, and membrane biology. She has a strong background in biophysical methodologies to characterise peptide-membrane interactions. Her research activities involve biophysical studies (e.g. surface plasmon resonance, flow cytometry and fluorescence spectroscopy) with model membranes to identify the membrane properties that modulate peptide bioactivity, and correlating them with studies with cells.
Dr Henriques graduated in Biochemistry (2004) and obtained a PhD degree in Molecular Biophysics (2008) from University of Lisbon in Portugal. In 2008 she was awarded an ARC Australian Postdoctoral Fellowship and started her postdoctoral research at UQ's Institute for Molecular Bioscience (IMB). In 2009, Dr Henriques was awarded a Marie Curie Fellowship and was appointed as invited lecturer in Portugal (Medicine School, University of Lisbon). Dr Henriques returned to IMB in 2012 on reception of an ARC DECRA and she was awarded an ARC Future Fellowship in 2015. She has conducted research in international and national universities including Université Libre de Brussels in Belgium, University of Southern Denmark, and the University of California Santa Barbara in USA.
Research projects
Development of novel anticancer drugs able to target and switch off cancer cells
Cancer is responsible for about three of every ten deaths and is the leading cause of disease burden in Australia. This is largely because conventional chemotherapeutic agents have low specificity for tumour cells, high toxicity for healthy cells and susceptibility to the development of resistance. Thus, there is a need for more effective cancer treatments that are tailored for a specific cancer and are not toxic to healthy cells. As each type of cancer is unique and results from alterations in intracellular pathways, inhibition of specific protein-protein interactions involved in the development of a certain type of cancer is a potential strategy to design safer cancer therapeutics. We are developing peptide-based therapeutics to target and deliver tailored drugs able to cross the cell membrane of tumour cells and specifically inhibit cancer pathways involved in breast cancer, leukaemia and melanoma. From the inside, we can deactivate cancer cells and stop these cancers from growing and spreading, without affecting healthy organs.
Breaching membrane barriers to modulate intracellular pathways
Cell membranes are barriers that control what can get inside cells. The ability to cross these barriers and deliver biological macromolecules, such as biomarkers, therapeutics and research tools, inside cells has endless opportunities that can be used to modulate cell’s activity. We are working on the development of novel molecular transporters to deliver macromolecules inside cells/microorganisms with therapeutic and biotechnological relevance. This technology is based on the use of stable cyclic peptides to deliver genes, proteins, probes or biomarkers into distinct cell types (e.g. cancer cells, bacteria, algae). We are specifically interested in the use of cell-penetrating peptides to target and monitor cancer biomarkers and to deliver nucleic acids inside model organisms with cell wall (e.g. bacteria, algae) to improve their potential as biofactories to produce therapeutics and biofuel.
Host-defence peptides to treat cancer and infectious diseases
Host-defence peptides are produced by our innate immune system and are expressed in response to fungal and bacterial infections and some have been shown to be able to kill tumour cells. We are interested in designing more selective and potent anticancer and antimicrobial drugs using host defence peptides. This will be achieved by unravelling the mode-of-action and identifying the features responsible for the anticancer and antimicrobial properties of host-defence peptides. We are particularly interested in redesigning host defence peptides to confer to them ability to selectively target breast cancer, blood tumours, metastatic circulating cells, or multi-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) infections.
Partners and collaborators
Collaborators and partners include:
- Professor David Craik (IMB, UQ)
- Professor Mibel Aguilar (Monash University)
- Professor Frances Separovic (University of Melbourne)
- Dr Christina Schroeder (IMB, UQ)
- Professor Miguel Castanho (University of Lisbon, Portugal)
- Professor David Andreu (University Pompeu Fabra, Spain)
- Professor Luis Bagatolli (University of Southern Denmark, Denmark)
- Professor Patrick Daugherty (University of California Santa Barbara, USA)
- Professor Fabrice Homblé (Université Libre de Brussels, Belgium).
Engagement and impact
Dr Henriques is a biochemist/biophysicist. Her work in mechanistic studies of peptides and peptide-membrane interactions is highly multidisciplinary and places her research at the interface of chemistry, biochemistry, structural biology, membrane biology, biotechnology and medical research. She is the co-author of over 50 publications on cyclic peptides, drug design and/or the mechanism of action of peptides, and has presented >20 oral communications in international scientific conferences including invited talks in prestigious national and international conferences (e.g. Gordon Conference on antimicrobial peptides, Australian Biophysics Symposium).
Dr Henriques has participated in several outreach activities for non-scientific and community audiences. Recently she wrote a chapter for a children’s book to promote science among Portuguese-descendent children (6-12 years) living in the United Kingdom. This book was released in late 2016 in Portugal. Following her award to attend a Nobel Laureate meeting in Germany in 2014 she was given the opportunity to share her story with the community through the media. Her abstract submitted to 60th Biophysical Meeting in 2016 was selected by the American Institute of Physics and biophysical society journal editors as one that should be of great interest to reporters. As a proof of that, her work was featured in several international (e.g. UK, USA) news websites/online magazines, such as ABC news, Medical News Today, Tech times, International Business Times). She has presented a seminar “the Pharma revolution: growing medicinal drugs in your backyard” at the Global Leadership Series to UQ alumni and the community; her work on cell-penetrating peptides was featured in Chemistry World, a news magazine from the Royal Society of Chemistry.
Dr Henriques’ work is at the interface of fundamental and applied research, together with her team she is trying to create new knowledge in the field of peptide drug research and cancer cell biology, and in potentially developing better and safer therapeutics to treat blood, skin and breast cancers than traditional drugs. This research has the potential to create a new generation of targeted cancer treatments that would deliver many benefits to cancer patients and the community. Developing better therapeutics with fewer side effects could potentially reduce the healthcare costs associated with treating patients diagnosed with cancer.
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Dr Angeline Chan
Research OfficerInstitute for Molecular BioscienceResearcher profile is public:1Supervisor:Dr Richard Kim
Chief Operating OfficerARC Centre of Excellence for Innovations in Peptide and Protein ScienceDeputy Director, ARC Centre of Excellence for Innovations in Peptide & Protein Science (CIPPS)Institute for Molecular BioscienceResearcher profile is public:0Supervisor:Associate Professor Conan Wang
ARC Future Fellow and Group LeaderInstitute for Molecular BioscienceResearcher profile is public:1Supervisor:Researcher biography:I lead the Technology-Driven Drug Discovery (Tech3D) Group at the Institute for Molecular Bioscience, UQ. We believe that the key to solving some of our world's biggest challenges, whether that be in medicine or agriculture, relies on the ability to precision engineer molecules at will. My group harnesses three technological pillars to engineer peptides and proteins, which are computational biology, molecular libraries, and nanotechnology. We aspire to design better drugs, creating next generation biotechnological agents that have real impact. These could be new cancer drugs that harness the body's immune system or new insecticides that are environmentally friendly. In these pursuits, we value advancement, fun, balance, respect, fairness, and integrity.
I have been involved in peptide and protein research for over two decades, and am highly experienced in bioinformatics, chemistry, structural characterization, biophysics, and biochemistry. I trained with experts in peptide and protein characterization: an Honours project with Professor Garry King at the University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia (2004), an APA scholarship with Professor David Craik at the University of Queensland Institute for Molecular Bioscience, Brisbane, Australia (2005-2009) and a NHMRC fellowship with Professor Mingjie Zhang at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Hong Kong, China (2009-2011) and A/Professor Andreas Hofmann at Griffith University Eskitis Institute, Brisbane, Australia (2011-2012). I returned to the University of Queensland in 2012 to join an industry partnership funded by an ARC linkage grant. I currently hold an ARC Future Fellowship and am responsible for a team of research officers, assistants and postgraduate students.
My research output has been recognised by >30 prizes and awards for leadership, research translation and fundamental research excellence, as well as numerous invitations to speak at academic and pharmaceutical conferences. I have over 100 publications and have been cited by researchers from across the world.
Body:Dr Kuok Yap
Research FellowInstitute for Molecular BioscienceResearcher profile is public:0Supervisor:Mr Gene Jiang
Research StaffInstitute for Molecular BioscienceResearcher profile is public:1Supervisor:Dr PAUL MUHINDIRA
Senior Research OfficerThe Institute for Molecular BioscienceResearcher profile is public:0Supervisor:Students
Mr Max Harding
Global Challenges Scholar & Postdoctoral Research FellowInstitute for Molecular BioscienceResearcher profile is public:1Supervisor:Miss Nora Tian
PhD studentInstitute for Molecular BioscienceResearcher profile is public:1Supervisor:Mr Mathias Jonsson
PhD studentInstitute for Molecular BioscienceResearcher profile is public:1Supervisor:Ms Marie Morin
PhD studentInstitute for Molecular BioscienceResearcher profile is public:1Supervisor:Ms Jing Xie
Postdoctoral Research FellowInstitute for Molecular BioscienceResearcher profile is public:1Supervisor:Mr Yuhui Zhang
Researcher profile is public:0Supervisor:Mrs Negin Khatibi
Researcher profile is public:0Supervisor:Ms Marie Morin
PhD studentInstitute for Molecular BioscienceResearcher profile is public:1Supervisor:Ms Anasruta Das
StudentInstitute for Molecular BioscienceResearcher profile is public:1Supervisor:Mr Lachlan Hall
StudentInstitute for Molecular BioscienceResearcher profile is public:1Supervisor:Mr Kenan Jia
StudentInstitute for Molecular BioscienceResearcher profile is public:1Supervisor:Mr Amal Reji Koottakaithayil
StudentInstitute for Molecular BioscienceResearcher profile is public:1Supervisor:Support staff
Mrs Robyn Craik
Casual Research AdminInstitute for Molecular BioscienceResearcher profile is public:0Supervisor:Dr Annie Kan
Manager, Business AdministrationInstitute for Molecular BioscienceResearcher profile is public:0Supervisor:Mrs Jaana Dielenberg
IMB support staffInstitute for Molecular BioscienceResearcher profile is public:1Supervisor:Ms Christine Fenwick
Business ManagerInstitute for Molecular BioscienceResearcher profile is public:0Supervisor:- Research VisitorInstitute for Molecular Bioscience
- Researchers at IMB have uncovered a peptide sourced from spider venom that has the potential to completely change the management of stroke.
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People have known for thousands of years that parents pass traits to their children, but it is only relatively recently that our technology has caught up to our curiosity, enabling us to delve into the mystery of how this inheritance occurs, and the implications for predicting, preventing and treating disease.
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