Chemistry Seminar - Organic chemistry for drug discovery and back again

Title: Organic chemistry for drug discovery and back again

Speaker: Dr Tristan Reekie from the University of New South Wales Canberra

Abstract: Drug discovery can provide a vast array of structures to inspire organic chemistry. Whether it necessitates methodology development, applying known chemistry to new molecules or generating novel functionality, the pursuit of pharmaceuticals is hugely beneficial to organic chemistry. This talk will showcase the generation of an active pharmaceutical ingredient, steps in process development and compound stability and solubility. It will show how a compound developed in an academic lab has progressed to human clinical trials and the lessons synthetic chemists can learn along the way. I will also show new chemical and biological work that is underway in my group at UNSW Canberra. 

Bio: Dr Tristan Reekie completed his PhD in 2013 at ANU under the supervision of Prof Martin Banwell. Tristan then completed a postdoctoral position at ETH Zurich with Prof Francois Diederich before returning to Australia to work with Prof Michael Kassiou at the University of Sydney. He began his independent career at ANU, which he has continued at UNSW Canberra where he is currently based. Tristan's research has led to the spin-out company Kinoxis Therapeutics where is also works as the Head of Chemistry.