Industrial chemist wins Grimwade Prize for facilitating access to new cancer drugs
A chemist focused on cancer medicine has won the 2024 Grimwade Prize for best original research in industrial chemistry undertaken in Victoria in the past five years.
Based in the Donelly Group at the Bio21 Institute, University of Melbourne Dr Asif Noor is addressing challenges in large-scale manufacturing and distribution of novel radioactive pharmaceuticals for cancer diagnosis and therapy.
“Australian clinical trials of biologically active molecules tagged with radioactive elements have shown greatly improved outcomes for cancer patients, so we need to scale up production of these emerging drugs to meet domestic and global demand,” Dr Noor said.
“With this goal, our research has advanced understanding of synthetic inorganic chemistry to support automated, scalable manufacturing of high-value radioactive drugs.”
Left: Dr Asif Noor. Right: An automated synthesiser of radiopharmaceuticals.
Another key challenge in the commercial production of these pharmaceuticals is their short shelf-life due to the rapid decay of radioactive materials, also known as half-life.
“The current solution is on-site production, which limits the use of radiopharmaceuticals to a few large hospitals, making these revolutionary treatments less accessible for Australians in rural and regional areas,” Dr Noor said.
“By filling critical knowledge gaps, we can enable centralised, cost-effective, large-scale manufacturing of radiopharmaceuticals, as well as improve their shelf-life to increase distribution across larger geographical areas.”
A graduate of Karachi University (Pakistan), Dr Noor completed his PhD at the University of Otago (New Zealand) before joining the School of Chemistry at the University of Melbourne in 2014.
Established in 1906, the University of Melbourne’s annual Grimwade Prize encourages and promotes the study of industrial chemistry. Candidates must be undergraduates or graduates of the University of Melbourne, or graduates of other tertiary institutions whose degrees are recognised by the Faculty of Science.