UQ appoints new Chair of Molecular Pharmacology

By bringing together some of the best minds and some of the best facilities for drug research in the country, The University of Queensland’s new Chair of Molecular Pharmacology is hoping to save thousands of lives.

That is the plan of Professor Rod Minchin who has recently joined UQ’s School of Biomedical Sciences from the University of Western Australia.

He said his new role would bring together scientists from many disciplines to spur on research in the areas of drug discovery and drug development.

“If there is enough infrastructure and enough talented people, which we have here, then we increase the likelihood of developing new therapies,” he said.

He said his focus would be particularly growing the drug development stage here at UQ, something that has been almost non-existent before in Australia.

“We already do great work in drug discovery and at the other end in clinical trials,” he said.

“But by adding in that pre-clinical phase of development we can value-add to the work we do.”

Professor Minchin studied pharmacology as an undergraduate at UWA and went on to do his postgraduate work in toxicology at the National Cancer Institute in Washington DC. He spent some time at the University of New South Wales as a QEII Fellow before returning to Perth where his last role was as Associate Professor of Pharmacology.

Professor Minchin said he believed UQ was the place to be for anyone interested in biotechnology at the moment.

“There is a lot that can be done here with the support UQ and the State Government is giving,” he said.

“Right now in Queensland, we have the resources and the skills to bring together a critical mass that can achieve great things.”

“There is the potential here to save thousands of lives with the work we are doing and that will be the payoff for the Queensland public.”

Media: For more information contact Professor Rod Minchin (telephone 07 3365 3118) or Andrew Dunne at UQ Communications (telephone 07 3365 2802).