University of Queensland (UQ) International PhD Scholarship Round Closes Jan 17th 2020
Looking for applicants to apply for UQ international or domestic PhD scholarships to work on a recent Australian Research Council grant on the development and optimisation of a gene delivery platform. See gene delivery publications for examples of past work. Contact Dr Peter Moyle ([email protected]) if you are interested in more information or applying.
About Moyle Lab
The Laboratory of Polypeptide Drugs and Delivery (Moyle Lab) is based at the School of Pharmacy at the University of Queensland Pharmacy Australia Centre of Excellence (PACE) campus (Brisbane, Queensland, Australia), and is headed by Dr Peter Moyle. For information on Dr Peter Moyle, click here.
The laboratory uses cutting edge technologies for the synthesis of peptides, protein expression, and protein semi-synthesis in order to gain insights into the functional roles played by various biochemical pathways, to engineer better protein and peptide therapeutics, and to improve their delivery characteristics.
Themes of current projects include:
- Subunit Vaccine Development: We focus on methods to develop improved subunit vaccines against neglected diseases through the development of technologies to enable the site-specific attachment of potent immunostimulatory adjuvants onto protein, peptide, and carbohydrate antigens. (Example peptide vaccine and semisynthetic vaccine research and review articles)
- Oligonucleotide Delivery Systems: Gene therapy is an exciting means to treat and/or prevent various diseases. However, the tissue specific delivery of therapeutic oligonucleotides (e.g. pDNA, siRNA, shRNA, miRNA) remains a significant barrier. We aim to produce multicomponent peptide-based systems to overcome these barriers. (Example research and review articles)
- Deciphering the Functional Roles of Post-Translational Modifications: We use peptide synthesis and protein semisynthesis to enable the production of large amounts of site-specifically modified species, which can be used to deconvolute the roles played by different post-translational modifications. (Example research articles)
- Peptide/Protein Drugs and Delivery: We aim to improve the delivery characteristics of peptide-based drugs (e.g. poor oral absorption, instability to chemical/enzymatic degradation, and inability to reach their site of action) through chemical engineering approaches.
Brisbane, Queensland, Australia