- About
- Strategic Plan
- Structure
- Governance
- Scientific divisions
- ACRF Cancer Biology and Stem Cells
- ACRF Chemical Biology
- Advanced Technology and Biology
- Bioinformatics
- Blood Cells and Blood Cancer
- Clinical Translation
- Epigenetics and Development
- Immunology
- Infectious Diseases and Immune Defence
- Inflammation
- Personalised Oncology
- Population Health and Immunity
- Structural Biology
- Ubiquitin Signalling
- Laboratory operations
- Funding
- Annual reports
- Human research ethics
- Scientific integrity
- Institute life
- Career opportunities
- Business Development
- Partnering opportunities
- A complete cure for HBV
- A stable efficacious Toxoplasma vaccine
- Activating SMCHD1 to treat FSHD
- Improving vision outcomes in retinal detachment
- Intercepting inflammation with RIPK2 inhibitors
- Novel inhibitors for the treatment of lupus
- Novel malaria vaccine
- Precision epigenetics silencing SMCHD1 to treat Prader Willi Syndrome
- Rethinking CD52 a therapy for autoimmune disease
- Targeting minor class splicing
- Royalties distribution
- Start-up companies
- Partnering opportunities
- Collaborators
- Publications repository
- Awards
- Discoveries
- Centenary 2015
- History
- Contact us
- Research
- Diseases
- Cancer
- Development and ageing
- Immune health and infection
- Research fields
- Research technologies
- People
- Anne-Laure Puaux
- Associate Profesor Ian Majewski
- Associate Professor Aaron Jex
- Associate Professor Alyssa Barry
- Associate Professor Andrew Webb
- Associate Professor Chris Tonkin
- Associate Professor Daniel Gray
- Associate Professor Diana Hansen
- Associate Professor Edwin Hawkins
- Associate Professor Emma Josefsson
- Associate Professor Ethan Goddard-Borger
- Associate Professor Grant Dewson
- Associate Professor Isabelle Lucet
- Associate Professor James Murphy
- Associate Professor James Vince
- Associate Professor Jason Tye-Din
- Associate Professor Jeanne Tie
- Associate Professor Jeff Babon
- Associate Professor Joan Heath
- Associate Professor Justin Boddey
- Associate Professor Kate Sutherland
- Associate Professor Leanne Robinson
- Associate Professor Marco Herold Marco Herold
- Associate Professor Marie-Liesse Asselin-Labat
- Associate Professor Matthew Ritchie
- Associate Professor Melissa Davis
- Associate Professor Misty Jenkins
- Associate Professor Nawaf Yassi
- Associate Professor Oliver Sieber
- Associate Professor Peter Czabotar
- Associate Professor Rachel Wong
- Associate Professor Rhys Allan
- Associate Professor Rosie Watson
- Associate Professor Ruth Kluck
- Associate Professor Sandra Nicholson
- Associate Professor Sant-Rayn Pasricha
- Associate Professor Seth Masters
- Associate Professor Sumitra Ananda
- Associate Professor Tim Thomas
- Associate Professor Wai-Hong Tham
- Associate Professor Wei Shi
- Catherine Parker
- Chela Niall
- Deborah Carr
- Dr Alisa Glukhova
- Dr Anna Coussens
- Dr Ashley Ng
- Dr Ben Tran
- Dr Bernhard Lechtenberg
- Dr Brad Sleebs
- Dr Drew Berry
- Dr Gemma Kelly
- Dr Gwo Yaw Ho
- Dr Hui-Li Wong
- Dr Jacqui Gulbis
- Dr Joanna Groom
- Dr John Wentworth
- Dr Kelly Rogers
- Dr Lucy Gately
- Dr Margaret Lee
- Dr Mary Ann Anderson
- Dr Maryam Rashidi
- Dr Matthew Call
- Dr Melissa Call
- Dr Philippe Bouillet
- Dr Rebecca Feltham
- Dr Samir Taoudi
- Dr Shalin Naik
- Dr Sheau Wen Lok
- Dr Simon Chatfield
- Dr Tracy Putoczki
- Guillaume Lessene
- Helene Martin
- Joh Kirby
- Kaye Wycherley
- Keely Bumsted O'Brien
- Mr Joel Chibert
- Mr Simon Monard
- Mr Steve Droste
- Ms Carolyn MacDonald
- Professor Alan Cowman
- Professor Andreas Strasser
- Professor Andrew Lew
- Professor Andrew Roberts
- Professor Anne Voss
- Professor Clare Scott
- Professor David Huang
- Professor David Komander
- Professor David Vaux
- Professor Doug Hilton
- Professor Gabrielle Belz
- Professor Geoff Lindeman
- Professor Gordon Smyth
- Professor Ian Wicks
- Professor Ivo Mueller
- Professor Jane Visvader
- Professor Jerry Adams
- Professor John Silke
- Professor Ken Shortman
- Professor Leonard C Harrison
- Professor Lynn Corcoran
- Professor Marc Pellegrini
- Professor Marnie Blewitt
- Professor Melanie Bahlo
- Professor Mike Lawrence
- Professor Nicos Nicola
- Professor Peter Colman
- Professor Peter Gibbs
- Professor Phil Hodgkin
- Professor Stephen Nutt
- Professor Suzanne Cory
- Professor Terry Speed
- Professor Tony Burgess
- Professor Tony Papenfuss
- Professor Warren Alexander
- Diseases
- Education
- PhD
- Honours
- Masters
- Undergraduate
- Student research projects
- A new regulator of stemness to create dendritic cell factories for immunotherapy
- Advanced methods for genomic rearrangement detection
- Control of cytokine signaling by SOCS1
- Defining the protein modifications associated with respiratory disease
- Delineating the pathways driving cancer development and therapy resistance
- Developing a new drug that targets plasmacytoid dendritic cells for the treatment of lupus
- Development and mechanism of action of novel antimalarials
- Development of a novel particle-based malaria vaccine
- Development of tau-specific therapeutic and diagnostic antibodies
- Discovering novel therapies for major human pathogens
- Dissecting host cell invasion by the diarrhoeal pathogen Cryptosporidium
- Epigenetic biomarkers of tuberculosis infection
- Essential role of glycobiology in malaria parasites
- Evolution of haematopoiesis in vertebrates
- Human lung protective immunity to tuberculosis
- Identifying novel treatment options for ovarian carcinosarcoma
- Interaction with Toxoplasma parasites and the brain
- Interactions between tumour cells and their microenvironment in non-small cell lung cancer
- Investigating the role of mutant p53 in cancer
- Microbiome strain-level analysis using long read sequencing
- Minimising rheumatic adverse events of checkpoint inhibitor cancer therapy
- Modelling spatial and demographic heterogeneity of malaria transmission risk
- Naturally acquired immune response to malaria parasites
- Predicting the effect of non-coding structural variants in cancer
- Structural basis of catenin-independent Wnt signalling
- Structure and biology of proteins essential for Toxoplasma parasite invasion
- T lymphocytes: how memories are made
- TICKER: A cell history recorder for longitudinal patient monitoring
- Targeting host pathways to develop new broad-spectrum antiviral drugs
- Targeting post-translational modifications to disrupting the function of secreted proteins
- Targeting the epigenome to rewire pro-allergic T cells
- Targeting the immune microenvironment to treat KRAS-mutant adenocarcinoma
- The E3 ubiquitin ligase Parkin and mitophagy in Parkinson’s disease
- The molecular controls on dendritic cell development
- Understanding malaria infection dynamics
- Understanding the genetics of neutrophil maturation
- Understanding the neuroimmune regulation of innate immunity
- Understanding the proteins that regulate programmed cell death at the molecular level
- Using cutting-edge single cell tools to understand the origins of cancer
- When healthy cells turn bad: how immune responses can transition to lymphoma
- School resources
- Frequently asked questions
- Student profiles
- Abebe Fola
- Andrew Baldi
- Anna Gabrielyan
- Bridget Dorizzi
- Casey Ah-Cann
- Catia Pierotti
- Emma Nolan
- Huon Wong
- Jing Deng
- Joy Liu
- Kaiseal Sarson-Lawrence
- Komal Patel
- Lilly Backshell
- Megan Kent
- Naomi Jones
- Rebecca Delconte
- Roberto Bonelli
- Rune Larsen
- Runyu Mao
- Sarah Garner
- Simona Seizova
- Wayne Cawthorne
- Wil Lehmann
- Miles Horton
- Alexandra Gurzau
- Student achievements
- Student association
- News
- Donate
- Online donation
- Ways to support
- Support outcomes
- Supporter stories
- Rotarians against breast cancer
- A partnership to improve treatments for cancer patients
- 20 years of cancer research support from the Helpman family
- A generous gift from a cancer survivor
- A gift to support excellence in Australian medical research
- An enduring friendship
- Anonymous donor helps bridge the 'valley of death'
- Renewed support for HIV eradication project
- Searching for solutions to muscular dystrophy
- Supporting research into better treatments for colon cancer
- Taking a single cell focus with the DROP-seq
- WEHI.TV
Four new projects announced for National Drug Discovery Centre
19 May 2020
Four research projects have been awarded generous Australian Government subsidies to fast-track their discoveries into new medicines using the National Drug Discovery Centre (NDDC).
Dr Brian Dymock, Dr Lorna Mitchell and Dr Liam Sharkey
The centre provides researchers in Australia with access to the latest in advanced robotic high-throughput screening to enable patients to potentially benefit from novel treatments sooner.
The four new projects will focus on finding new treatments for drug-resistant prostate and breast cancers, blood cancers, antibiotic-resistant infections and Prader Willi Syndrome (PWS). The subsidies cover 90 per cent of the cost of using the NDDC, reducing the cost of a traditional screening campaign – normally upwards of $300,000 – to around $30,000-$45,000.
At a glance
- Four new research projects have been announced as beneficiaries of Australian Government subsidies to access the National Drug Discovery Centre, an important step towards the development of new medicines.
- The projects will use the centre’s advanced robotic high-throughput screening technologies to improve treatments for drug-resistant prostate and breast cancers, blood cancers, antibiotic-resistant infections and Prader Willi Syndrome (PWS).
New therapies for patient treatment
Dr Brian Dymock, from UniQuest’s drug discovery initiative, QEDDI, at The University of Queensland, will lead a project to be first-in-class to inhibit the growth of primary and drug-resistant prostate and breast tumours and reduce resistance to current therapies.
Dr Lorna Mitchell, representing teams from Biocurate and Monash University, will receive a subsidy to investigate new medicines for the treatment of blood cancers including Burkitt’s lymphoma (BL), diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL), and multiple myeloma (MM).
Dr Liam Sharkey, from the Doherty Institute and University of Melbourne, will screen for compounds that can overcome antibiotic resistance in Staphylococcus aureus, a “high priority pathogen” for the development of new antibiotics as designated by the World Health Organization.
Professor Marnie Blewitt and Associate Professor James Murphy, from the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute, will seek new treatments for Prader Willi Syndrome (PWS), a debilitating, incurable disease apparent from birth, with devastating consequences for patients and their families. Current treatments only target certain symptoms of this complex disease, none address its root cause.
Round three applications for subsidised access to the NDDC will close in late 2020 with successful recipients chosen by an independent panel. There are two funding rounds per calendar year with increasing capacity until 2022.
Supporting the development of new medicines
The $75 million centre, which was opened by Australian Health Minister, the Hon. Greg Hunt, and Victorian Health Minister, the Hon. Jenny Mikakos, in March 2020, is advancing Australia’s drug discovery capabilities and reducing the amount of time it takes to bring new medicines to market.
The NDDC was generously supported by $25 million from the Australian government through the Medical Research Future Fund (MRFF) and $18 million from the Victorian Government, with a $32 million investment from the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute, which includes income from the sale of venetoclax royalties and philanthropic gifts.
Institute director Professor Doug Hilton recognised the contributions of the Australian and Victorian governments, and philanthropic donors, for bringing the NDDC to life and ensuring researchers have access to the latest technologies to advance their projects.
“We are very thankful for the generous contributions, which have enabled our colleagues from Australian research institutes, universities and small-to-medium enterprises to advance their research beyond the bench. We are proud to provide them with world-class facilities and staff as they fast-track their drug discovery journeys,” Professor Hilton said.
“We look forward to seeing the results of these ground-breaking research projects progress in the years to come resulting in new treatments for patients in Australia and around the world.”
Media enquiries
M: +61 475 751 811
Super Content:
The NDDC enables medical researchers to access ultra-high throughput screening, fast tracking scientific discoveries into new medicines.
The Australian Government has committed to $25 million in funding to enhance drug discovery capabilities at the Institute’s Drug Discovery Centre.
A landmark deal from the partial sale of royalty rights in anti-cancer treatment venetoclax secures the Institute’s place for innovation in medical research.
Want to be informed of our most exciting discoveries? Subscribe to our quarterly newsletter, Illuminate.