Biota Award for Medicinal Chemistry

Biota is a leading antiviral drug development company based in Melbourne. Biota’s initial success was with the discovery of zanamivir, the first-in-class neuraminidase inhibitor for the treatment and prevention of influenza.

Biota Holdings Ltd fund the award of an annual medal and prize for Medicinal Chemistry to encourage drug design and development by younger chemists with less than 12 years of professional experience since completing their most recent relevant qualification.

Only financial members of RACI are eligible to apply for the Biota Medal for Medicinal Chemistry. The medal is awarded to the chemist judged to be responsible for the best drug design and development paper published, patent taken out, or commercial in confidence report in the previous calendar year, concerning small molecules (less than 1000 Da) as potential therapeutic agents.

DR. PAUL DONNELLY

For his research into new non-invasive molecular agents to assist in the diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease as well as guide emerging therapies.

The Biota Award winner for 2011 is Dr Paul Donnelly MRACI CChem (Senior Lecturer, School of Chemistry, University of Melbourne) for his publication entitled ‘A copper radiopharmaceutical for diagnostic imaging of Alzheimer’s disease: a bis(thiosemicarbazonato) - copper(II) complex that binds to amyloid-ï�¢ï� plaques’ (Chem. Commun. 2010, 46, 5437).

Dr Donnelly has received the Biota Award for his research into new non-invasive molecular agents to assist in the diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease as well as guide emerging therapies. One of the major pathological hallmarks of the disease is the presence of extracellular senile plaques in the brain. The plaques consist of insoluble aggregated peptide amyloid-ï�¢ï� (Aï�¢). Dr Donnelly and his colleagues designed and synthesised a unique copper(II) complex that selectively binds to Aï�¢ï� plaques in human brains. The compound was radiolabelled with copper-64 and the brain uptake determined in a transgenic animal model of AD using positron emission tomography. The complex was shown to cross the blood–brain barrier and display increased uptake in the brains of the AD model animals when compared to control animals.

Dr Donnelly is a graduate of the University of Western Australia where Professor Jack Harrowfield supervised his PhD studies. This was followed by postdoctoral research and a Junior Research Fellowship at Somerville College at the University of Oxford under the supervision of Professor Jonathan Dilworth. Dr Donnelly returned to Australia to undertake an Australian Research Council Fellowship at the University of Melbourne where he is now a Senior Lecturer in the School of Chemistry and leads a research group in the Bio21 Molecular Science and Biotechnology Institute. The excellence of his research has been recognised by award of the Alan Sargeson Lectureship for 2008–09 and the RACI Rennie Memorial Medal 2010.