Griffith Institute for Drug Discovery (GRIDD)

Griffith University

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The Griffith Institute for Drug Discovery (GRIDD) brings together leading experts in the fields of biology and chemistry to tackle significant global health problems, focusing on infectious diseases, cancers, neurological disorders and spinal cord injury repair. Our research expertise includes early stage drug discovery, high throughput screening, medicinal and chemical biology, natural product chemistry, drug target identification, biophysical screening and cell factory technologies and pre-clinical capabilities. The Institute has world-class NMR and mass spectrometry facilities and houses unique resources including NeuroBank and NatureBank, the latter being Australia’s largest natural product collection and screening library. GRIDD’s Compounds Australia is the nation’s compound management facility and is part of the NCRIS Therapeutic Innovation Australia platform and home to the ACRF Centre for Compound Management and Logistics.

Website https://www.griffith.edu.au/institute-drug-discovery

Key science sectors

• Biotechnology
• Health and medical
• Life sciences
• Tropical

Strengths and capabilities

• Advanced NMR and mass spectrometry
• Medicinal chemistry and chemical biology
• High throughput screening
• Natural product chemistry
• Parkinson's disease research
• Cancer research
• Malaria, TB and other infectious disease research
• Spinal cord injury repair research
• Cell factories and biopolymers
• Antimicrobial resistance

Facilities and major equipment

• High-resolution NMR and mass spectrometry facility
• Discovery Biology high throughput screening facility
• Neuro Bank - olfactory system cell bank
• Clem Jones Centre for Neurobiology and Stem Cell Research
• Centre for Cell factories and Biopolymers
• Centre for Cancer Cell Biology and Drug Discovery
• Compounds Australia - national compound management facility
• ACRF Centre for Compound Management and Logistics
• NatureBank - nations largest natural product collection and library

Number of research staff

100-200 research staff

Address

Building N75, Griffith University, Brisbane Innovation Park, Don Young Road, Nathan, 4111

Lead researchers

• Professor Katherine Andrews—Expertise in malaria drug discovery including screening, mode of action studies and in vitro and in vivo pre-clincial models
• Professor Sally-Ann Poulsen—Expertise in chemical biology, medicinal chemistry and fragment screening using native state mass spectrometry
• Professor Vicky Avery—Expertise in drug discovery with high throughput and high content screening, cancer and malaria

Achievements of the centre

• Prof Vicky Avery and her team contributed to research with the Cancer Therapeutics CRC resulting in a research partnership with Pfizer
• Prof George Mellick co-led a breakthrough study into non-inherited genetic changes; may aid understanding of Parkinson’s disease

Organisation type

• University Research Centre