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A/Prof Kym Lowes

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About

Associate Professor Kym Lowes received her PhD in Biochemistry and Medicine from the University of Western Australia in 2002. She has over 17 years of experience in early-stage drug discovery. In her current role as Head of the Screening Laboratory, she leads a multidisciplinary team of 18 staff comprising assay development specialists, target screeners, data scientists, automation experts and engineers. Her laboratory exploits state-of-the-art robotic equipment to enhance the scope and speed of the pre-clinical drug discovery process.

Dr Lowes has a successful track record leading screening campaigns with internal and external collaborators from both academia and pharma. She has designed, implemented and led many large-scale screening campaigns and effectively executed hit to lead and lead optimisation programs. She is experienced in using automation, complex data sets and various assay detection methodologies to support drug discovery projects.

She has been a key contributor to multidisciplinary teams across a wide range of indications including oncology, infectious diseases and inflammatory diseases, and various target classes including enzymes, protein-protein interactions and GPCRs.

Publications

Selected publications from A/Prof Kym Lowes

de Lera Ruiz M, Favuzza P, Guo Z, Zhao L, Hu B, Lei Z, Zhan D, Murgolo N, Boyce CW, Vavrek M, Thompson J, Ngo A, Jarman KE, Robbins J, Boddey J, Sleebs BE, Lowes KN, Cowman AF, Olsen DB, McCauley JA. The Invention of WM382, a Highly Potent PMIX/X Dual Inhibitor toward the Treatment of Malaria. ACS Med Chem Lett. 2022 Oct 12;13(11):1745-1754. PMID: 36385924

Klemm T, Ebert G, Calleja DJ, Allison CC, Richardson LW, Bernardini JP, Lu BG, Kuchel NW, Grohmann C, Shibata Y, Gan ZY, Cooney JP, Doerflinger M, Au AE, Blackmore TR, van der Heden van Noort GJ, Geurink PP, Ovaa H, Newman J, Riboldi-Tunnicliffe A, Czabotar PE, Mitchell JP, Feltham R, Lechtenberg BC, Lowes KN, Dewson G, Pellegrini M, Lessene G, Komander D. Mechanism and inhibition of the papain-like protease, PLpro, of SARS-CoV-2. EMBO J. 2020 Sep 15;39(18):e106275. PMID: 32845033

Hodder AN, Christensen J, Scally S, Triglia T, Ngo A, Birkinshaw RW, Bailey B, Favuzza P, Dietrich MH, Tham WH, Czabotar PE, Lowes K, Guo Z, Murgolo N, Lera Ruiz M, McCauley JA, Sleebs BE, Olsen D, Cowman AF. Basis for drug selectivity of plasmepsin IX and X inhibition in Plasmodium falciparum and vivax. Structure. 2022 Apr 11:S0969-2126(22)00099-5.

Hodder AN, Sleebs BE, Czabotar PE, Gazdik M, Xu Y, O’Neill MT, Lopaticki S, Nebl T, Triglia T, Smith BJ, Lowes K, Boddey JA, Cowman AF. Structural basis for plasmepsin V inhibition that blocks export of malaria proteins to human erythrocytes. Nat Struct Mol Biol. 2015 Aug;22(8):590-6.

Leverson JD, Phillips DC, Mitten MJ, Boghaert ER, Diaz D, Tahir SK, Belmont LD, Nimmer P, Xiao Y, Ma XM, Lowes KN, Kovar P, Chen J, Jin S, Smith M, Xue J, Zhang H, Oleksijew A, Magoc TJ, Vaidya KS, Albert DH, Tarrant JM, La N, Wang L, Tao ZF, Wendt MD, Sampath D, Rosenberg SH, Tse C, Huang DC, Fairbrother WJ, Elmore SW, Souers AJ. Exploiting selective BCL-2 family inhibitors to dissect cell survival dependencies and define improved strategies for cancer therapy. Sci Transl Med. 2015 Mar 18;7(279):279.

Nachbur U, Stafford CA, Bankovacki A, Zhan Y, Lindqvist LM, Fiil BK, Khakham Y, Ko HJ, Sandow JJ, Falk H, Holien JK, Chau D, Hildebrand J, Vince JE, Sharp PP, Webb AI, Jackman KA, Mühlen S, Kennedy CL, Lowes KN, Murphy JM, Gyrd-Hansen M, Parker MW, Hartland EL, Lew AM, Huang DC, Lessene G, Silke J. A RIPK2 inhibitor delays NOD signalling events yet prevents inflammatory cytokine production. Nat Commun. 2015 Mar 17;6:6442.

Lessene G, Czabotar PE, Sleebs BE, Zobel K, Lowes KN, Adams JM, Baell JB, Colman PM, Deshayes K, Fairbrother WJ, Flygare JA, Gibbons P, Kersten WJ, Kulasegaram S, Moss RM, Parisot JP, Smith BJ, Street IP, Yang H, Huang DC, Watson KG. Structure-guided design of a selective BCL-X(L) inhibitor. Nat Chem Biol. 2013 Jun;9(6):390-7.

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