Research theme: Environment, Food, Health
Research discipline: Chemistry
Research areas
Isolation of Biologically Active Natural Products: Indigenous plants reported to be of medicinal value are under examination to determine that structural nature of any active components Techniques used include HPLC and spectroscopic methods, particularly 2D NMR techniques. Collaboration with the Queensland Institute of Medical Research and with the Forest Research Institute in Dehra Dun, Northern India is involved.
Mode of Action of the Anti-tumour Drug Fotemustine: The drug Fotemustine, was intended for treatment of brain tumours but high toxicity limits its use to tumours located in limb tissue Preliminary studies suggest that the mode of action is unusual and we are attempting to understand this by examining the reaction with short synthetic oligonucleotides using mass spectrometry techniques.
Drug interaction with triplex DNA: The drug coralyne binds more strongly to triplex DNA than to duplex DNA. The intimate nature of this interaction is being studied by 2D NMR experiments and will provide essential clues for the design of better ligands with increased sequence specificity and increased relative affinity for triplexes compared to duplexes.