Dr. Mark Blaskovich is an Professor and Director of Translation at the Institute for Molecular Bioscience at The University of Queensland, as well as Director of the ARC Training Centre for Environmental and Agricultural Solutions to Antimicrobial Resistance (CEAStAR).
He has extensive medicinal chemistry expertise resulting from more than 16 years of industrial drug development experience.
As Chief Operating Officer at Mimetica (Australia), he managed the drug discovery and development program for melanocortin-5 receptor antagonists, leading to a compound currently in Phase II human trials.
In his previous role at CEPTYR (Seattle) he led a multidisciplinary team that developed a preclinical candidate that inhibited protein tyrosine phosphatase 1B for the treatment of diabetes, while at Molecumetics (Seattle) he headed a $2m/yr industrial collaboration on peptidomimetic compounds targeting proteases and GPCRs.
Mark is currently developing new antibiotics to treat drug resistant pathogens and new methods to diagnose infections.
He has published more than 140 articles, is an inventor on 11 families of patents, and is author of 'The Handbook on Syntheses of Amino Acids'.
Experience
2023–present
Professor, Institute for Molecular Bioscience, University of Queensland
2023–present
Director, ARC Industrial Transformation Training Centre for Environmental and Agricultural Solutions to Antimicrobial Resistance
2023–present
Director of Translation, Institute for Molecular Bioscience, University of Queensland
2016–2022
Director, Centre for Superbug Solutions
2021–2022
Associate professor, Institute for Molecular Bioscience, University of Queensland
2016–2020
Senior Research Fellow, Institute for Molecular Bioscience, University of Queensland
2019–2020
IMB Fellow, Institute for Molecular Bioscience, University of Queensland
2010–2015
Senior Research Officer, Institute for Molecular Bioscience, University of Queensland
2005–2009
Chief Operating Officer, Mimetica
2002–2005
Associate Director of Chemistry, CEPTYR
1997–2002
Group Leader, Molecumetics
Education
1993
University of Waterloo, Ph.D. Organic Chemistry
1987
University of Victoria, B.Sc. Chemistry Co-op Honours
Publications
2011
Handbook on Synthesis of Amino Acids, Oxford University Press