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NHMRC success

26 March 2008

Professors Patrick Sexton, Arthur Christopoulos and Roger Summers have been given the go-ahead to work on new techniques to make medication more effective.

A new $6.5 million research program being undertaken at Monash University aims to improve the effectiveness of drug treatment for heart disease, mental illness, diabetes and obesity.

Professors Patrick Sexton, Arthur Christopoulos and Roger Summers have received $6.5 million from the National Health and Medical Research Council to fund research work on receptor proteins.

The research targets G protein-coupled receptors, which are the major class of proteins that transmit messages from the outside to the inside of the cell. They are found on the surface of every cell in the human body.

"The majority of all drugs on the market act on these proteins; every pharmaceutical company in the world is targeting these proteins," Professor Christopoulos said.

Professor Sexton said the knowledge gained by the work in the program would improve the mechanistic understanding of these drugs.

"Many potential drugs that make it into clinical trials are never registered for use," Professor Sexton said. "In up to 30 per cent of cases this is due to mechanistic failure -- the drug not doing what it was intended to do."

Each of the three scientists brings a different facet to the research and they hope their collaboration will result in improved treatments for schizophrenia, anxiety and depression, diabetes and obesity.