CFBD Director Prof Martin Scanlon received funding through CSIRO’s CUREator – a national biotechnology incubator run by Brandon BioCatalyst to support the development of Australian biomedical research and innovations.

The project is led by Prof Bernie Flynn (Monash), Prof Colin Pouton (Monash) and CFBD Director Prof Martin Scanlon. The funding will support their aim to respond to the risk of viral and bacterial replication through the development of a platform capability in polynucleotide fragment based drug design (pFBDD) that is better able to discover small-molecules for targeting RNA and DNA.

CUREator is delivered through an initial $40m in funding from the Federal Government’s Medical Research Future Fund (MRFF) and $3m from Australia’s national science agency, CSIRO. CUREator was established by Brandon Capital in 2021 as a new approach for bridging the gap between where research grant funding ends and commercial investment begins.