Plenary Session: Margaret Brimble

Abstract

This lecture will showcase our research on the synthesis of peptides, lipopeptides and glycopeptides as a platform for the discovery and development of peptide therapeutics as agents to treat neurogenetic disorders, infectious disease, cancer and diabetes. Professor Brimble discovered the peptide drug candidate trofinetide (NNZ2566) that has been granted orphan drug status and fast track designation by the US FDA and is currently being evaluated in a final phase III clinical trial undertaken by Neuren Pharmaceuticals to treat Rett Syndrome. Professor Brimble recently co-founded the spin-out company SapVax with US$6 million investment from BioMotiv in Cleveland, Ohio to develop a suite of “first-in-class cancer vaccines” based on a novel self-adjuvanting peptide chemistry platform for immuno-oncology applications. She also established a Medsafe NZ-approved laboratory that has manufactured clinical grade peptide antigens for use as vaccines in human clinical trials to treat melanoma.

Biography

Margaret Brimble is a Distinguished Professor, Director of Medicinal Chemistry and Deputy Director of the Maurice Wilkins Centre for Molecular Biodiscovery at the University of Auckland, New Zealand. She is a Fellow of the Royal Society London, Dame Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit, has been inducted into the American Chemical Society Medicinal Chemistry Hall of Fame and received the Rutherford, Hector and MacDiarmid medals (Royal Society NZ), the Kiwinet Supreme Award and Baldwins Research Entrepreneur 2019 Commercialization Awards and the 2016 Marsden medal (NZ Association of Scientists). She was awarded the 2018 Sosnovsky Award for Cancer Therapy and 2010 Natural Products Award from the Royal Society of Chemistry. In 2015 she was awarded an IUPAC Distinguished Women in Chemistry/Chemical Engineering award and was named the 2007 L’Oréal-UNESCO Women in Science Laureate for Asia-Pacific in Materials Science. She is Past-President of IUPAC Organic and Bimolecular Division, Past-President of International Society of Heterocyclic Chemistry, Past-Chair of the Rutherford Foundation and PCB Marsden grant panel. She is an Associate-Editor for Organic Letters (American Chemical Society), and has served as a member of the European Research Council Advanced Grants Panel, the Kiwinet return-on-science life sciences investment panel and the Physical Sciences Panel for NZ Performance Based Research Fund (PBRF) Assessment. She has published >520 papers, >90 reviews and is an inventor on >50 patents.