Higher Degree by Research Application Portal
| Title | Tackling carbohydrate-processing enzymes head on: Developing new scaffolds to inhibit carbohydrate-processing enzymes involved in human health and wellbeing. |
|---|---|
| Supervisor | Dr Keith Stubbs |
| Course | Doctor of Philosophy |
| Keywords | synthetic organic chemistry, glycobiology |
| Categories | Scholarship |
| Research area | Chemical Sciences |
| Project description | The enzymes that regulate the structures of glycans are extremely important and have been implicated in a wide variety of diseases and thus are targets for therapeutics. The laboratory studies a wide variety of enzymes found in humans that have been implicated in cancer, Alzheimer’s disease, carbohydrate metabolism dysfunction and neurological diseases as well as those in bacteria and microbes that are involved in antibiotic resistance and correct digestion. Project(s) described here will be to design and synthesize new inhibitor scaffolds and various chemical tools that can be used to investigate the role these carbohydrate-processing enzymes play in the various human diseases and bacterial pathogenesis and life cycle. The prepared compounds will be tested for their potency against the enzymes in question and they will also be tested in vitro to determine their effectiveness at the cellular level. As well, through strong international collaborations these compounds will also be co-crystallized with proteins of interest. |
| Opportunity status | Open |
| Open date | 28 Aug 2026 |
| Close date | 31 Oct 2026 |
| Funding source | Commonwealth Government |
| School | Graduate Research School |
| Contact | Professor Keith Stubbs (keith.stubbs@uwa.edu.au) |
| Specific project requirement | General UWA PhD entrance requirements can be found on the Future Students website. The level of experience required will depend on the project involved. |
| Course type | Doctorates |
| Description | The Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) is a program of independent, supervised research that is assessed solely on the basis of a thesis, sometimes including a creative work component, that is examined externally. The work presented for a PhD must be a substantial and original contribution to scholarship, demonstrating mastery of the subject of interest as well as an advance in that field of knowledge. Visit the course webpage for full details of this course including admission requirements, course rules and the relevant CRICOS code/s. |
| Duration | 4 years |