Our Research Impact

Bridging the gaps to repair spinal cord injury

An innovative nerve bridge therapy combined with patient-centred rehabilitation is on track to provide people living with spi…

Professor James St John in the lab

Compounds Australia – a unique national facility enabling drug discovery

Discovering a new drug is often achieved by testing large numbers of compounds against a disease – but where do we safely sto…

laboratory equipments in the lab

Tackling complexity in the fight against disease

Systems-based approaches are not only increasing our understanding of disorders such as schizophrenia, but they’re on track t…

Alex Cristino

How Nature can be used to tackle diverse problems

Nature is a valuable source of chemical diversity that scientists can tap into to generate useful applications across the hea…

Associate Professor Rohan Davis in lab coat

Bringing knowledge together to have real world impacts

From traditional medicines to contemporary healthcare and agricultural products – fundamental scientific knowledge can help s…

Associate Professor Yun Feng

How a small fish could give answers to treating complex diseases

To understand different diseases, we need to be able to model them in all their complexity – Zebrafish are proving well-suite…

Dr Jean Giacomotto

Heart disease – moving beyond the known risk factors

To better manage heart disease, we need to move beyond the known risk factors and build a deeper understanding of how this de…

Danielle Kamato

Tackling the complexity of Parkinson’s Disease from all angles

A holistic approach incorporating patient input is being used by the Queensland Parkinson’s Project to achieve positive outco…

George Mellick

Advancing knowledge in the fight against malaria

If we are to win the fight against devastating diseases such as malaria, then we need fundamental scientific knowledge on our…

Professor Katherine Andrews in lab coat

Microscopic Solutions for Global Problems

The answers to some of society’s most pressing issues might be tiny - living cells that can act as microscopic factories that…

Professor Bernd Rehm

NatureBank - facilitating drug discovery from Australian flora and fauna

NatureBank, a unique library of plant, fungi and marine invertebrate samples, allows researchers to accelerate biodiscovery a…

crinoid

Equipping scientists with the right chemical probe for the job

Chemical probes allow scientists to visualise biological systems and gain fundamental information on diseases. However, scien…

Professor Sally-Ann-Poulsen

Viruses – an answer to major health problems?

While the word ‘virus’ may elicit all kinds of negative associations, there is much to be learnt from these sub-microscopic e…

Dr Frank Sainsbury

Unlocking the potential of saliva-based diagnostics

Salivary diagnostic tests are on track to provide us with sorely needed effective and cheap tools that allow for the early de…

Professor Chamindie Punyadeera

Profiling the big ‘biological’ picture to answer complex problems

Biology is complicated – but viewing biological systems as a whole can lead to positive impacts across the health, agricultur…

Associate Professor Schirra

Parasites – more than a horror film

While ‘parasite’ is a term we may be used to hearing in horror or alien sci-fi movies, in reality, parasites have a much larg…

Associate Professor Skinner-Adams

Going beyond the lab to engage children in STEM

The That’s RAD! Science project is breaking down gender stereotypes and encouraging children to be the scientists of the futu…

Katherine Andrews holding the That's RAD magazine

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GRIDD is a world-class research facility, offering unique resources and drawing on a global network of partners to target the world’s most devastating diseases.

GRIDD is a Griffith University research institute with a focus on early stage and pre-clinical drug discovery. GRIDD’s aim is to utilise its unique resources, dedicated researchers and international partnerships to drive the discovery and development of revolutionary new treatments to improve human health and wellbeing.

We are currently focusing on a number of key discovery areas, including cancer, infectious diseases, Parkinson’s disease, drug resistance and spinal cord injury repair. Innovating at the cutting-edge of both chemistry and biology, we have ongoing established partnerships where we collaborate with local and national health institutions, governments, academia, industry, not-for-profit organisations and communities to create knowledge that transforms lives.

GRIDD is home to two significant resources in Compounds Australia and NatureBank. Compounds Australia is the nations’ industry standard compound curation facility, unmatched in the Southern hemisphere and a leader globally. NatureBank is Australia’s largest collection of raw biota, processed into large extract and fraction libraries. Both resources are available to researchers and industry worldwide that, like GRIDD, are seeking to discover new treatments and cures for debilitating illnesses.

Join us

Join us in the search for treatments for the world's most devastating diseases

Industry, not-for-profit and government partnerships

We extend our heartfelt gratitude to our dedicated partners and supporters, which include but are not limited to:

Additionally, we appreciate the generosity of our community, whose donations play a pivotal role in advancing our quest for novel treatments for cancers, malaria, Parkinson's disease, spinal cord injury and other diseases and health conditions.

At GRIDD, we invite you to explore our world class drug discovery facilities. We regularly organise tours to bring our community beyond the laboratory doors, to showcase our exceptional infrastructure and meet with our research teams.

Directions in drug discovery

Delve deeper into our research and find out more about our approaches, innovation and collaborations across key research areas:

Cancers

An estimated 130,470 new cases of cancer were diagnosed in Australia in 2016, with that number set to rise to 150,000 by 2020. GRIDD research teams are working to discover compounds that are active against a range of cancers, including breast, prostate, pancreatic and brain tumours.

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Infectious diseases

Infectious diseases kill more than one million people annually. GRIDD Professors Kathy Andrews, Vicky Avery and Ronald Quinn are seeking new drugs to treat diseases like malaria and TB, while Associate Professor Tina Skinner-Adams is exploring antiparasitic drug discovery and drug target identification, with a goal to improve the lives of those at risk of parasite infection.

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Neurological disorders

About 70,000 Australians are affected by this progressive disease of the nervous system. Professor George Mellick’s research explores the genetics of Parkinsonism and the interactions between genetic and environmental factors that contribute to onset and development of the disease.

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Drug resistance

Professor Sally-Ann Poulsen has discovered a new way to reverse multidrug resistance in cancer, while Professor Jenny Martin is exploring how to disarm bacteria so they cannot cause disease.

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Spinal cord injury repair

Up to half a million people globally suffer from spinal cord injury. GRIDD’s Associate Professor James St John in the Clem Jones Centre for Neurobiology and Stem Cell Research offers hope of new therapies. The 2017 Australian of the Year, Professor Emeritus Alan Mackay-Sim pioneered this research.

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Our researchers

See the team who make up GRIDD and find out more about our individual research strengths.

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Unique resources

Explore our unrivalled resources available for use

NatureBank

Access NatureBank’s collection of more than 100,000 natural product fractions ready for screening against any disease.

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Compounds Australia

Australia's only dedicated compound management facility, Compounds Australia connects chemists and biologists for drug discovery research.

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Key technologies

Our key technologies include high-throughput screening, Fourier transform mass spectrometry and fragment-based screening.

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Research highlights

Australian of the Year 2017

Professor Emeritus Alan Mackay-Sim

Alan Mackay-Sim is a world-renowned trailblazer in cell transplantation, who paved the way for innovative research to repair damaged spinal cords to return the gift of movement to paralysed people.

Fighting antibiotic resistance

Dr Maria Halili speaks about her work at the Griffith Institute for Drug Discovery finding solutions for antibiotic resistance using disulfide bonds.

Using ion channels to fight Parkinson's Disease

Dr Linlin Ma speaks about her work at the Griffith Institute for Drug Discovery using ion channels in the fight against Parkinson's Disease.

Artificial intelligence in drug discovery

Have you ever wondered how technology can help improve drug discovery research in the future? GRIDD's Dr Miaomiao Liu is working on using artificial intelligence (AI) to analyse natural products for drug discovery in areas such as malaria and tuberculosis.

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