November Genomics and Health Seminar

You are invited to attend our last Genomics and Health Seminar for 2021.

This month we will hear from Associate Professor Vito Ferro from the University of Queensland.

Associate Professor Ferro will give a talk on the “Inhibition of heparan sulfate-protein interactions as an antiviral strategy for COVID-19“.

Speaker bio

A/Prof Vito Ferro completed his undergraduate and PhD studies at the University of WA  and held postdoctoral fellowships at the Carlsberg Laboratory in Denmark (1992-94) and then at the University of British Columbia in Canada (1994-96). He then returned to Australia and spent 12 years in the biotechnology industry with Progen Pharmaceuticals Ltd where he held various positions including Director of Drug Discovery. In 2008 A/Prof Ferro moved to QUT as a Principal Research Fellow and Deputy Program Leader in the CRC for Polymers before joining UQ in 2010.

A/Prof Ferro’s research interests are in carbohydrate and medicinal chemistry, with a focus on the synthesis of compounds to probe and/or inhibit carbohydrate-protein interactions. Of particular interest is heparan sulfate (HS) and the development of HS mimetics as potential drugs for a range of diseases. Previous work in this area resulted in the discovery of pixatimod (PG545), a potent inhibitor of angiogenesis and metastasis that is currently in Phase I clinical trials in cancer patients and is being developed as a treatment for COVID-19. Current research interests include: pharmacological chaperone therapy for lysosomal storage diseases such as Sanfilippo syndrome; HS mimetics as antiviral agents; glycoconjugates as antibacterial agents and vaccine adjuvants; and new synthetic routes to rare L-sugars.

Details:

Start Date: 01/11/2021 [add to calendar]
Start Time: 12:00PM
End Date: 01/11/2021
End Time: 1:00PM
Register: