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The University of Southampton
Chemistry

Development of Peptide and Peptidomimetic Therapeutic Agents from a New Zealand Perspective Seminar

Time:
16:00
Date:
25 March 2015
Venue:
Building 27, Room 2001 Chemistry University of Southampton Southampton SO17 1BJ

For more information regarding this seminar, please email Ali Tavassoli at A.Tavassoli@soton.ac.uk .

Event details

Margaret Brimble presents a seminar as part of the Chemical Biology, Diagnostics and Therapeutics groups seminar series.

Prof Brimble’s lecture will showcase how pursuing an academic career focused on the intricate science of “making molecules” can result in innovation leading to commercialization of molecules that not only reap economic rewards but also transform lives. The lecture will describe her lab’s research on the synthesis of peptide mimetics as a platform for the discovery and development of drug candidates to treat traumatic brain injury, osteoporosis and diabetes. The path to establish a Medsafe-approved laboratory that has manufactured clinical grade peptide antigens under cGMP for use in human clinical trials as vaccines to treat melanoma will also be described.

Speaker information

Prof. Margaret Brimble, University of Auckland. Margaret Brimble holds the Chair of Organic Chemistry and is Director of Medicinal Chemistry at The University of Auckland. She is vice-President of IUPAC Organic and Biomolecular Division and Chair of the Synthesis Subcommittee, and an Associate Editor for Organic and Biomolecular Chemistry. In 2012 Margaret was awarded the RSNZ Rutherford medal (NZ’s top science medal), the Hector Medal (Chemical Sciences) and the McDiarmid medal (research for human benefit) and in 2008 the World Class NZ Award for Research, Science and Technology. She was the 2007 L’Oréal-UNESCO Women in Science Laureate for Asia-Pacific in Materials Science and won the RSC Natural Product Chemistry Award (2010), the RACI Adrien Albert Award (2011) and the Novartis Chemistry Award. She has been conferred with two Queen’s honours (MNZM 2004 and CNZM 2012) for her services to science. Professor Brimble’s research focuses on the synthesis of bioactive natural products and the synthesis of peptides, glycopeptides, and peptide mimetics as potential therapeutic agents. She developed the drug candidate NNZ2566 for Neuren Pharmaceuticals that is in phase 2b clinical trials for traumatic brain injury and was successful in phase 2 trials for Rett Syndrome. NNZ2566 has recently been named trofinetide and has received orphan drug status and fast track designation for registration as the first drug to treat Rett Syndrome by the FDA. Professor Brimble’s laboratory has also recently been licensed by Medsafe NZ to manufacture clinical grade peptides under cGMP for human clinical trials of therapeutic cancer vaccines.

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