Focus
Cancer
Medicinal chemistry
Mitochondria
Breast cancer
Drug development
Brain cancer
Group leader
Tristan Rawling
Mitochondria are critical to cell health; they generate ATP to meet cellular energy requirements and regulate apoptotic cell death. Recent studies have identified structural and functional differences between cancer cell mitochondria and those found in noncancerous cells. Our group aims to leverage these differences to develop new mitochondria-targeted anticancer drugs to treat triple negative breast cancer and other highly lethal cancers.
We take a multidisciplinary approach to drug development. We use chemical biology and medicinal chemistry approaches to design new drug candidates, which we synthesise and screen for anticancer activity using in vitro assays that measure cell health and mitochondrial function. We collaborate nationally with computational chemists and cancer biologists to understand the molecular determinants of drug potency and assess drug efficacy in animal models of cancer. Our research is funded by the NHMRC and has produced promising drug candidates that have been licensed to industry for clinical development.