Research in Focus
Professor John Bremner and his Group
What are you researching?
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We have three research themes:
1. Developing new anti-infective agents to combat bacterial, viral and protozoal disease
2. Finding better ways for the chemotherapy of cancer
3. Improving ways in which natural dyes can be used to dye silk and cotton.
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Why is it important?
1. Resistance to current antimicrobial agents is an increasing problem. Therefore it is imperative to find new ways of tackling this major challenge to health care world wide. We are looking to fight bacteria, a virus and protozoa at a molecular level and to come up with new potential drug molecules.
2. Cancer affects many people and we still have a long way to go to effectively treat it. We are hoping to develop new mixtures of anti-cancer drugs, as well as new drugs, to help in this treatment.
3. The use of natural dyes to dye textiles is economically important in many countries, for example Thailand-however to improve the processes and hence add value more knowledge is needed and this involves understanding the detailed chemistry of the process and this is what we are trying to do.
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Plasmodium falciparum, a causative agent of malaria, and red blood cells (Nature Insight, 415, 7 Feb, 2002)
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What are your latest achievements?
A breast cancer cell and the anti-cancer agent 5-fluorouracil)
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We have developed new antibacterial agents active against drug resistant bacteria as well as new compounds which could potentially be developed in to new drugs to treat AIDS and malaria. Promising in vivo activity has been shown by a new drug combination against cancer.
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Who funds you work?
Avexa Ltd, Melbourne, NHMRC, and the University of Wollongong (Cancer Research Grants; Institute for Biomolecular Science; Scholarships), as well as support from Thailand. Major support for the anti-cancer work has also been received through private donors, charitable bodies Illawarra Cancer Carers), and service groups ( Rotary; Lions), and QantasLink.
Who do you collaborate with?
Northeastern University, Harvard Medical School, Johnson C. Smith University, USA ; Suranaree University of Technology, Ramkhamhaeng University, Thailand; Avexa Ltd, Melbourne, Phytex Australia, Sydney.
What's the best event to happen in the last three years?
Working with and learning from such a talented research group.
Receiving microbiological test results from the US (Northeastern University) which indicated a new design principle we had proposed for an antibacterial agent was a feasible one - a great boost.
What's next?
To take some of the compounds we have developed through pre-clinical stages and hopefully in the longer term to clinical trials.
Contact details for further information
Prof John Bremner, john_bremner@uow.edu.au
Ph 02-42214255
Weblinks
Department of Chemistry home page
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