Research interests
Our research is conducted in world-leading research facilities, focussing on medicine discovery and understanding the mechanisms of disease. Find out more about these research interests, and our staff members.
Associate Professor Michael Hay
- The role of the tumour microenvironment in drug and radiation resistance
- Developing radiation sensitisers
- Tumour hypoxia as a drug target
- Drug design and development
- Clinical trials of novel anticancer targeted therapies
- Clinical trials of novel treatments for preventing oxaliplatin neurotoxicity
- National cohort studies of lung cancer personalized treatment and targeted therapy
- Understanding mechanisms and discovering treatments for platinum anticancer drug neurotoxicities
- Combination therapy of microbiome transfer and Keytruda for the treatment of lung cancer in Māori versus non-Māori
- Evaluation of novel dual IDO1/TDO2 inhibitors versus mono-specific IDO1 or TDO2 inhibitors for the treatment of cancer
- Mechanism of activity of placental extracellular vesicles for inhibiting growth of ovarian tumour xenografts
- Design and chemical synthesis of potential drug candidates for the treatment of cancer.
- Development of novel drug-dye conjugates for targeted brain cancer therapy.
- Development of hypoxia-activated prodrugs for the treatment of multi-drug resistant tuberculosis.
- Targeted protein degradation using PROTACs and molecular glues.
- Modern methods in drug high throughput screening:
- Target-based
- DNA encoded libraries
- Peptide-based affinity selection mass spectrometry
- Phenotype-based
- Screening of covalent fragment libraries in disease relevant systems
- Target-based
- Systems biology approaches to drug target deconvolution (genetic and chemical methods)
- Using the ubiquitin-proteasome system (UPS) to chemically induce proximity and stabilise tumour suppressors and reverse cancer pathophysiology
- DNA-PK inhibitors
- Radiation biology
- Hypoxia and hypoxia-activated prodrugs
- Pharmacokinetic/pharmacodynamics mathematical models in the tumour microenvironment
Associate Professor Stephen Jamieson
- Preclinical anticancer drug discovery
- Modelling, understanding and targeting the tumour microenvironment·
- Functional genomics to identify genetic dependencies for cancer cells and therapies
- Improving therapies for HER2-positive breast cancer and melanoma
- Development of blood-brain barrier crossing near infra-red fluorescent drug delivery systems for adult and paediatric gliomas
- Development of targeted protein degraders for treatment of CNS disorders
- Development of organelle selective fluorescent probes for studying organelle functions
- Development of polymeric nanoparticles as nanocarriers for brain drug delivery
- Molecular modelling for structure-based drug discovery
- Design and synthesis of small molecule drugs for the treatment of cancer
- Adopting new technologies to improve drug discovery
- Commercialisation of science and technology
- The use of tumour-targeting bacteria in cancer therapy
- Cancer gene therapies, e.g. Clostridium-directed Enzyme Prodrug Therapy·
- The development novel immune adjuvants to improve the effectiveness of cancer immunotherapies
- The use of non-invasive imaging techniques in cancer research (bioluminescence, microCT, microPET)
- Developing three-dimensional cancer cell culture models using primary patient breast tumour and healthy tissue samples
- Exploring cancer-immune and cancer-adipocyte interactions within the tumour microenvironment
- Uncovering the tumour intrinsic and extrinsic factors that influence drug response and treatment resistance
- Exploring the use of pre-clinical breast cancer models to facilitate precision medicine in NZ
Associate Professor Adam Patterson
- Discovery and development of bioreductive prodrugs as cancer therapeutics
- Discovery and development of covalent or isoform-selective protein kinase inhibitors
- Discovery and development of immune stimulants for combination with checkpoint blockade
- Biomarker discovery and validation to support commercial development of clinical candidates
- Hypoxia-activated prodrugs as anti-cancer agents
- Antibody-drug conjugates for treatment of cancer
- Tumour hypoxia markers
- DNA adducts of duocarmycin analogues as PD markers
- Investigating how hypoxia and cell metabolism influence the tumour microenvironment
- Targeting hypoxia and cell stress pathways for the treatment of cancer
- Discovery of cancer gene dependencies using functional genomics
- Identifying new targets for treating of IDH1 mutant malignancy
Associate Professor Jeff Smaill
- Discovery and development of bioreductive prodrugs as cancer therapeutics·
- Discovery and development of covalent or isoform-selective protein kinase inhibitors
- Discovery and development of immune stimulants for combination with checkpoint blockade
- Biomarker discovery and validation to support commercial development of clinical candidates
- Design and synthesis of small molecule drugs for the treatment of cancer
- Small molecule modulation of kinases involved in cell signal transduction
- Inhibitors of the cytolytic protein perforin as potential immunosuppressive agents
- Inhibition of kinases involved in T-cell receptor pathway signalling
- Improved payloads for antibody-drug conjugates (ADCs)
- Hypoxia-activated prodrugs as selective anticancer agents
- Novel uses of prodrugs in ADCs
- Fluorescent reporters as aids in anticancer drug development
- Discovering chemotherapy sensitisers and immune-modulatory drugs for cancer therapy
- Discovery of enzymes regulating immunosuppressive tryptophan metabolism in cancer
- Devising therapeutic strategies for arresting immunosuppressive tryptophan metabolism and restoring anti-cancer immunity
- Developing inhibitors of immunosuppressive enzymes indoleamine 2,3-dioxygenase 1 (IDO1) and tryptophan 2,3-dioxygenase (TDO) for sensitising patients to cancer immunotherapies