Discovery of herbicides with new modes of action, new chemistries inspired by antimalarial drugs.
Learn more
Examining what happens to fungicides once they're inside plants by mass spectrometry.
Learn more
Protein crystallography of new and known herbicide targets to enable ab initio herbicide design.
Learn more
Origins of diverse (often cyclic) plant peptides and the enzymology of their synthesis.
Learn more
We're hiring a post-doc to work on fungicide biotransformation using our OrbiTrap Exploris 120. Open to internationals, $103K-$122K p.a. + 17% super. Close 30 Aug. Fixed term, 3 years, full-time (with the possibility of extension). See the advert or this Tweet.
We have 2 projects open for PhD candidates at Curtin University. The projects are entitled "Agrochemical behaviour in planta" and "New herbicidal modes of action". They close on 18 August 2022. Tweeted: Herbicides; Fungicides.
Josh has just finished 12 straight days of seeding out in WA's remote, far-eastern wheat belt. Read about the experience on this CCDM blog, listen to a podcast done on Day 2 or see the series of photo-laden Twitter threads with the hashtags #seeding #MarvelLoch.
Our research has two separate foci on two classes of agrochemical; we work to find truly new herbicides and have started to pursue the in planta behaviour of fungicides. Our herbicide research aims to find new herbicides, principally by directing our first efforts at finding and validating new modes of action. Our fungicide work is new since arriving at CCDM in 2021 and seeks to understand biotransformation led by mass spectrometry. We also continue to publish what is quickly becoming legacy work on peptide biosynthesis, protease-mediated cyclisation and the genetic events that evolve new plant proteins.
Our applied herbicide work started with our finding that, thanks to the established close evolutionary relationship between plants and the malarial parasites, many antimalarial drugs are also herbicidal. After trawling antimalarial drug libraries for novel herbicide chemistries, we have turned our focus to discovering novel modes of herbicide action. Our fungicide biotransformation work was inspired by colleagues at CCDM who seek to understand the basis for resistance by pathogens and investigate various means to improve crop health.
Check out the active projects in the lab, check out Josh's Twitter feed, see what the lab is publishing or get real and visit us in person! We're always looking for bright minds to join us, get in touch by e-mail!
Make contact