ur research interests lie in the application of structural chemistry to biomedical or biological problems, which involves an interdisciplinary approach incorporating organic synthesis, NMR spectroscopy, computational chemistry, ecology, microbiology and biochemistry.

We are particularly interested in marine natural products, their biological activity, ecological roles, biosynthesis and most importantly, their modes of action as drugs. In relation to the later, we hope to pioneer the application of phage display technology in the isolation of genes and proteins that bind specifically to bioactive natural products. By combining the techniques of traditional affinity chromatography with phage display we will be able to directly couple biologically active natural products to the gene of their cellular target ­ the genotype-phenotype link. This technique has great potential to elucidate how small molecules affect gene expression, signal and energy transduction and cell differentiation.

For more information click on of the links below:

Marine Natural Products

Reverse Chemical Proteomics / Display Cloning / Phage Display

DNA Binding Complexes

Sulfur-based Enzyme Inhibitors

Link to VMK2 - our intermolecular interaction graphing application

Journal Covers

	"Epicocconone, a new cell-permeable long Stokes' shift fluorescent stain for live cell imaging" The natural product epicocconone has been used to develop a non-toxic fluorescent stain for live cell imaging. The product is now commercialised by FLUOROtechnics as LavaCell.
	"Original cover graphics by Prof. Peter Karuso (Macquarie University) depicts the differences between genetics, proteomics and their chemical counterparts as discussed in the review by Piggott and Karuso entitled 'Quality, not Quantity: The Role of Natural Products and Chemical Proteomics in Modern Drug Discovery'. The authors review Chemical Proteomics as a validated method for isolating drug receptors and introduce Reverse Chemical Proteomics as a potentially powerful new tool in the rapid isolation of natural product receptors from proteomes tagged with an amplifiable vector."
	"Solution structure and behaviour of DELTA-cis-alpha-[Ru(R, R-picchxnMe2)(phi)]2+ by NMR spectroscopy and molecular modelling". NOESY and Pulsed field-gradient longitudinal eddy-current delay NMR spectroscopy was used to determine the solution structure of DELTA-cis-alpha-[Ru(R, R-picchxnMe2)(phi)]2+ and to show that the alpha-isomer (but not the beta-isomer) oligomerises at higher concentrations.