Professor Vito Ferro
Primary research interest
Carbohydrate chemistry, medicinal chemistry, drug discovery
Additional roles
Medicinal Chemistry Theme Leader
Chair, Health Safety and Wellness Committee
About me
After completing my undergraduate and PhD studies at the University of WA I was a postdoctoral fellow at the Carlsberg Laboratory in Denmark (1992-94) with 2022 Nobel Laureate Morten Meldal, and then at the University of British Columbia in Canada (1994-96) with Steve Withers. I then returned to Australia and spent 12 years in the biotechnology industry with Progen Pharmaceuticals Ltd where I held various positions including Director of Drug Discovery. In 2008 I moved to QUT as a Principal Research Fellow and Deputy Program Leader in the CRC for Polymers before joining The University of Queensland in 2010.
Research focus and collaborations
My 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 has shown promise 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.
Projects
- Pharmacological chaperone therapy for lysosomal storage diseases
- Synthetic heparin/HS mimetics as inhibitors of virus-cell attachment
- Synthesis of heparanase inhibitors with improved specificity
- Antibiotic conjugates: joining together to fight antimicrobial resistance
- Radical new routes to rare L-sugars
Collaborators
International
- Prof Israel Vlodavsky (Technion, Israel)
- Prof Gideon Davies (University of York, UK)
- Prof David Vocadlo (Simon Fraser University, Canada)
- Prof Gerd Bendas (University of Bonn, Germany)
- Prof Jin-ping Li (Uppsala University, Sweden)
- Dr Edwin Yates (University of Liverpool, UK)
- Prof Jeremy Turnbull, Mark Skidmore (Keele University, UK)
- Dr Marco Guerrini (Ronzoni Institute, Italy)
National
- Prof Kim Hemsley, Dr Adeline Lau (Flinders University)
- Dr Neha Gandhi (QUT)
- A/Prof Jan Kaslin (Monash University)
- A/Prof Jennifer Wilson (Griffith University Gold Coast)
- Prof Murray Baker (University of WA)
Local
Funded projects
- ARC Discovery Grant (2022-2024). Opening Up Access to L-Sugars through a Synergy of Experiment and Theory. Total value of the grant: $366,000
- NHMRC IDEAS Grant (2021-2023). Antibiotic Conjugates: Joining Together to Fight Antimicrobial Resistance. Total value of grant: $697,674
- Sanfilippo Children's Foundation Incubator Grant (2021). Development of pharmacological chaperones for MPS IIIB. Total value of grant: $94,500
- National MPS Society (2021-2022). Towards pharmacological chaperone therapy for MPS II. Total value of grant: $161,755.00
- Sanfilippo Children’s Foundation Incubator Grant (2021). Targeting purinergic pathways in the brain to ameliorate inflammation and restore synaptic health in Sanfilippo syndrome. Total value of grant: $90,000
- AID Seed Grant (2021) Next generation COVID-19 vaccines and antivirals. Total value of grant: $50,000
- Sanfilippo Children's Foundation Translational Grant (2020-2021). Small molecule drug therapy for MPS IIIA. Total value of grant: $482,932
- Sanfilippo IIIB Syndrome Research (2020). Philanthropic Donation. Total value of donation: $81,000
- Sanfilippo Children's Foundation Incubator Grant/UQ SWIF Grant (2018-2019). Pharmacological chaperones for MPS IIIA. Total value of grant: $159,926.30
- ARC Discovery Grant (2017-2019). Heparan sulfate mimetics: versatile tools for chemical biology. Total value of grant: $435,000
Teaching interests
- CHEM2050/2901 - Intermediate Chemistry 1/Advanced Intermediate Chemistry 1
- CHEM3001 - Organic Chemistry
- CHEM3020 - Medicinal Chemistry & Chemical Biology
- CHEM1221 - General, Organic & Biological Chemistry
Achievements and awards
- Fellow of the Royal Australian Chemical Institute
- Member of the Australian Infectious Diseases Research Centre
- Member of the Australian Glycoscience Society
- Member of the American Chemical Society
- 2014 SCMB Award for Outstanding Contributions to Engagement
Featured publications
- See, Nicholas W., Xu, Xiaowen, and Ferro, Vito. (2022). An Improved Protocol for the Stereoselective Synthesis of β-d-Glycosyl Fluorides from 2-O-Acyl Thioglycosides. The Journal of Organic Chemistry, 87 (21), 14230-14240. doi: 10.1021/acs.joc.2c01748
- Guimond, Scott E., Mycroft-West, Courtney J., Gandhi, Neha S., Tree, Julia A., Le, Thuy T., Spalluto, C. Mirella, Humbert, Maria V., Buttigieg, Karen R., Coombes, Naomi, Elmore, Michael J., Wand, Matthew, Nyström, Kristina, Said, Joanna, Setoh, Yin Xiang, Amarilla, Alberto A., Modhiran, Naphak, Sng, Julian D. J., Chhabra, Mohit, Young, Paul R., Rawle, Daniel J., Lima, Marcelo A., Yates, Edwin A., Karlsson, Richard, Miller, Rebecca L., Chen, Yen-Hsi, Bagdonaite, Ieva, Yang, Zhang, Stewart, James, Nguyen, Dung ... Turnbull, Jeremy E. (2022).Synthetic heparan sulfate mimetic pixatimod (PG545) potently inhibits SARS-CoV-2 by disrupting the spike–ACE2 interaction. ACS Central Science, 8 (5) acscentsci.1c01293, 527-545. doi: 10.1021/acscentsci.1c01293
- Chhabra, Mohit, Doherty, Gareth G., See, Nicholas W., Gandhi, Neha S. and Ferro, Vito (2021).From cancer to COVID‐19: a perspective on targeting heparan sulfate‐protein interactions. The Chemical Record tcr.202100125. doi: 10.1002/tcr.202100125
- See, Nicholas W., Wimmer, Norbert, Krenske, Elizabeth H. and Ferro, Vito (2021).A substituent‐directed strategy for the selective synthesis of L‐hexoses: an expeditious route to L‐idose. European Journal of Organic Chemistry, 2021 (10), 1575-1584. doi: 10.1002/ejoc.202100042
- Wu, Liang, Wimmer, Norbert, Davies, Gideon J. and Ferro, Vito (2020).Structural insights into heparanase activity using a fluorogenic heparan sulfate disaccharide. Chemical Communications, 56 (89), 13780-13783. doi: 10.1039/d0cc05932c
Researcher biography
Carbohydrate chemistry, medicinal chemistry, drug discovery
Vito Ferro is a Professor in the School of Chemistry & Molecular Biosciences. His research interests are in the area of synthetic carbohydrate chemistry, and drug design and development.