Medicinal Chemistry and Drug Discovery

Our research team, based at the University of Sydney School of Chemistry and Faculty of Medicine and Health, covers an exciting and diverse range of fields within medicinal chemistry and drug discovery. Our group utilises modern organic chemistry techniques to synthesise novel chemical entities and develop structure-activity relationships of bioactive CNS molecules. We explore drug-protein and drug-binding site interactions, allowing us to rationally design more efficacious drug treatments for diseases of the brain.

  • Drug discovery for diagnosis and treatment of frontotemporal dementia syndromes – Jonathan Danon
  • Drug discovery for neurodegenerative diseases – Eryn Werry, Michael Kassiou
  • Targeting protein aggregation for the treatment of neurodegenerative diseases – Timothy Callis - PhD
  • Design and Synthesis of Novel Senolytics for Treatment of Alzheimer’s Disease – Nathan Castellino - PhD
  • Synthesis of Altenusin Analogues as Tau Aggregation Inhibitors – Mutian Cui - PhD
  • Developing novel frontotemporal dementia and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis therapeutics to rescue TDP-43 mistranslocation – Alison Cheng - PhD
  • Multi-Target Drug Design for Tau Protein Aggregation – Alexander Gee - PhD
  • Development of vascularised human brain models to improve translation in Alzheimer’s disease drug discovery – Sam Lane - PhD
  • Alzheimer’s Disease Insights and Drug Development using a 3D iPSC-Derived Triculture System – Michael Sullivan - PhD
  • Exploring cell senescence in neurodegeneration – Alexandra Maximova – PhD

Meet our Research Group

Professor Michael Kassiou

Professor of Medicinal Chemistry and Academic Director of the Drug Discovery Initiative, USyd

  • Medicinal Chemistry
  • PET Tracers Development
  • Neuropharmacology

Dr Jonathan Danon

Postdoctoral Fellowship, USyd

  • Medicinal Chemistry
  • Drug Discovery
  • PET Tracers Development

Dr Eryn Werry

Senior Lecturer and Research Fellow, USyd

  • Drug Discovery
  • Neuropharmacology
  • Neuroinflammation

Dr Andrew Montgomery

Drug Discovery Initiative Postdoctoral Fellow, USyd

  • Medicinal chemistry
  • Computational Chemistry
  • PET tracer development

Timothy Callis

PhD Student

Targeting protein aggregation for the treatment of neurodegenerative diseases

Supervisor: Prof. Michael Kassiou

Years:

Nathan Castellino

PhD Student

Design and Synthesis of Novel Senolytics for Treatment of Alzheimer’s Disease

Supervisor: Prof. Michael Kassiou

Years:

Mutian Cui

PhD Student

Synthesis of Altenusin Analogues as Tau Aggregation Inhibitors

Supervisor: Prof. Michael Kassiou

Years: 2020-23

Alison (Hei Wun) Cheng

PhD Student

Developing novel frontotemporal dementia and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis therapeutics to rescue TDP-43 mistranslocation

Supervisors: Dr Eryn Werry, Prof. Michael Kassiou

Years: 2018-2021

Alexander Gee

PhD Student

Multi-Target Drug Design for Tau Protein Aggregation

Supervisor: Prof. Michael Kassiou

Years: 2020-24

Sam Lane

PhD Student

Development of vascularised human brain models to improve translation in Alzheimer’s disease drug discovery

Supervisor: Prof. Michael Kassiou, Dr. Eryn Werry, Dr. Martin Engel

Years: 2020-23

`Sasha (Alexandra) Maximova

PhD Student

Exploring cell senescence in neurodegeneration

Supervisors: Dr Eryn Werry, Prof. Michael Kassiou

Years: 2020-24

Michael Sullivan

PhD Student

Alzheimer’s Disease Insights and Drug Development using a 3D iPSC-Derived Triculture System

Supervisors: Dr. Eryn Werry, Prof. Michael Kassiou

Years: 2019-22