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 Western Australia I was a postdoctoral fellow at the Carlsberg Laboratory in Denmark (1992-94) with the 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 was evaluated in 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
- HS mimetics for enhancing mesenchymal stromal cell proliferation
- Antibiotic conjugates: joining together to fight antimicrobial resistance
- Radical new routes to rare L-sugars
Collaborators
International
- Prof Gerd Bendas (University of Bonn, Germany)
- Prof Jin-ping Li (Uppsala University, Sweden)
- Prof Neha Gandhi (Manipal Institute of Technology, India)
- Dr Marco Guerrini (Ronzoni Institute, Italy)
National
- Prof Kim Hemsley (Flinders University)
- Dr Adeline Lau (Flinders University)
Local
- Prof Elizabeth Krenske
- Prof Mark Blaskovich
- Prof James De Voss
- Prof Simon Cool
- Prof Lisbeth Grøndal
- Prof Justin Cooper-White
Funded projects
- NFMRI Grant (2025-2026). Pharmacological chaperone therapy in a mouse model of MPS IIIA (Sanfilippo syndrome), a childhood dementia. Total value of the grant: $145,000
- 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
- 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
- 2023 SCMB HDR Supervision Excellence Award
- Fellow of the Royal Australian Chemical Institute
- Member of the Australian Glycoscience Society
- Member of the Australian Infectious Diseases Research Centre
- Member of the American Chemical Society
- 2014 SCMB Award for Outstanding Contributions to Engagement
Featured publications
- G. Zhang, N. W. See, N. Wimmer, M. Godinez, S. A. Cameron, R. H. Furneaux and V. Ferro. (2024). Site-Selective Photobromination of O-Acetylated Carbohydrates in Benzotrifluoride. Organic Letters 26 (28) 5956-5960. https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.orglett.4c01898
- 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
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.