Institute for Molecular Bioscience

Institute for Molecular Bioscience We harness nature to discover cures for a better world Our vision is to create a world with a cure for every disease.

We harness our knowledge of nature to create sustainable cures for diseases that plague people, animals and plants. Our researchers use Australian venoms, plants and soils to stop superbugs in their tracks, to create better cancer treatments, to ensure patients survive strokes and heart attacks, to solve inflammatory diseases such as Parkinson's and Alzheimer's, and to develop environmentally friendly and effective pesticides. We are based at The University of Queensland in Brisbane/Meanjin, Australia.

Beauty...with a sting at This striking image from Darren Brown highlights the needle‑like trichomes of the Gympie‑Gymp...
19/02/2026

Beauty...with a sting at

This striking image from Darren Brown highlights the needle‑like trichomes of the Gympie‑Gympie stinging tree — a venomous plant studied by Professor Irina Vetter and her team in the Vetter Group at UQ’s Institute for Molecular Bioscience 🔬🌱

Their research investigates how toxins from this plant interact with nerve pathways and trigger pain, offering fresh insight into novel pain mechanisms and the potential for new, non‑opioid treatments.

Learn more about Queensland's toxic native plants here 👉 https://imb.uq.edu.au/article/2023/05/stinging-tree-injects-promise-pain-relief

Our skin does more than cover our bodies — it also helps protect the tiny nerve fibres that let us feel touch, temperatu...
17/02/2026

Our skin does more than cover our bodies — it also helps protect the tiny nerve fibres that let us feel touch, temperature and pain 💢

researchers, including Dr Sean Coakley (School of Biomedical Sciences), Professor Massimo Hilliard (Queensland Brain Institute) and Dr Igor Bonacossa-Pereira (IMB), have discovered a previously unknown protective scaffold in the skin. Using a tiny roundworm as a model, they found a nanoscale “skin cast” made of spectrin proteins that shields fragile axons from mechanical stress 🪱

“Focusing on the tissue surrounding the axon might uncover new ways of treating and preventing injury and disease,” said Dr Bonacossa-Pereira. “All animals have spectrins, which suggests these molecules are a key building block and will now be the subject of significant further study.”

The discovery reshapes our understanding of nerve health and opens the door to new treatments for nerve injury and neurodegenerative disease — by strengthening the tissue around nerves, not just the nerves themselves.

Read more here 👉 https://news.uq.edu.au/2026-01-pleasure-and-pain-tiny-worm-reveals-secret-protecting-skin-sensations

👭Today is International Day of Women and Girls in Science👩‍🔬 stands with the global community to champion the 2026 the...
11/02/2026

👭Today is International Day of Women and Girls in Science👩‍🔬

stands with the global community to champion the 2026 theme From Vision to Impact: Redefining STEM by Closing the Gender Gap. Because scientific progress doesn’t happen by chance — it happens when inclusion, equity and opportunity are built in, not bolted on.

At IMB, we see the impact of diverse perspectives every day. Different experiences, backgrounds and ways of thinking don’t just enrich discovery — they accelerate it. When every researcher is empowered to contribute, lead and thrive, science becomes stronger, fairer and more transformative.

Today, we celebrate the women and girls who challenge conventions, expand what’s possible, and are shaping the future of science right now.

National Research and Innovation AgencyDrug‑resistant tuberculosis remains one of Southeast Asia’s most urgent health th...
08/02/2026

National Research and Innovation AgencyDrug‑resistant tuberculosis remains one of Southeast Asia’s most urgent health threats — and IMB’s Professor Mark Blaskovich is leading a bold push to change that 🩺

With funding from the latest e‑ASIA Joint Research Program, Professor Mark Blaskovich's project has the potential to redefine how tuberculosis is diagnosed across the region. His team is developing nanotechnology‑based tools that rapidly capture TB bacteria and detect drug‑resistant strains, cutting out slow culture steps and enabling faster, life‑saving treatment.

The collaboration brings together UQ, Monash University Malaysia, and The National Research and Innovation Agency, showing how sustained collaboration and multidisciplinary expertise can accelerate real‑world solutions to global health issues.

Read more here 👉 https://global-partnerships.uq.edu.au/article/2026/02/uq-researchers-secure-two-major-projects-highly-competitive-asia-pacific-health-research-program

It's a full house!IMB extends our sincere thanks to Professor Dame Carol Robinson for visiting us at and delivering an...
06/02/2026

It's a full house!

IMB extends our sincere thanks to Professor Dame Carol Robinson for visiting us at and delivering an inspiring lecture on the evolution and future of gas phase structural biology, a field she has been instrumental in shaping.

In her presentation, Professor Dame Carol Robinson traced the remarkable progression of mass spectrometry as a tool for understanding protein assemblies in the gas phase. She highlighted how, with carefully tuned experimental conditions, proteins can retain their folding and topology, enabling early breakthroughs in studying antibody–antigen complexes, viruses, ribosomes and chaperones.

We are grateful to Professor Dame Carol Robinson for sharing her expertise and for inspiring researchers across career stages to push the boundaries of what is possible in structural biology.

Today, IMB is delighted to welcome Professor Dame Carol Robinson and Professor Simon Newstead from the Kavli Institute f...
06/02/2026

Today, IMB is delighted to welcome Professor Dame Carol Robinson and Professor Simon Newstead from the Kavli Institute for Nanoscience Discovery at the University of Oxford.

Their visit marks the beginning of a new partnership built on strong relationships, shared strengths and a commitment to collaborative, interdisciplinary science. By bringing people together across institutions and career stages, the partnership creates new opportunities for research collaboration, researcher mobility and training pathways across areas including brain health, infectious disease, antimicrobial resistance and next-generation biomaterials.

We look forward to the exciting opportunities this collaboration brings.

Picture 1: Professor Simon Newstead, David Phillips Chair of Molecular Biophysics, Department of Biochemistry, University of Oxford; Professor Dame Carol Robinson, Dr Lee’s Professor of Chemistry and Director, Kavli Institute for Nanoscience Discovery, University of Oxford & Professor Ian Henderson, Executive Director, Institute for Molecular Bioscience.

Picture 2: Professor Sue Harrison, Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Research and Innovation) & Professor Dame Carol Robinson, Dr Lee’s Professor of Chemistry and Director, Kavli Institute for Nanoscience Discovery, University of Oxford

06/02/2026

Clocking in! reveals how your cells run rockstar shifts (even when you're sleeping) ⭐

Research from Dr Meltem W., Dr Benjamin W. and Prof. Frederic Gachon reveals the circadian “schedule” that orchestrates your liver’s daily rhythm of protein production and export. Just like a postal centre, millions of liver cells clock on and off each day, packaging and sending out proteins that regulate metabolism, inflammation and energy balance. But they don’t work flat‑out 24/7; their activity is tightly timed by the body’s internal clock and by when (and how much) we eat.

📦 The team found key components of the liver’s secretory machinery (the molecular "conveyor belts" that fold and ship proteins) switch on and off across the day/night cycle, fuelled by glycogen‑derived sugars.

⏱️ Why does this matter? Time and metabolism are deeply intertwined — understanding these natural rhythms gives us a baseline for what happens when timing cues go awry (think irregular sleep or disrupted eating), and could guide new time-specific therapies, nutrition strategies, and drug-delivery approaches.

This research demonstrates that your body doesn't just keep the score; it keeps the time (even when you don’t!) and working with that rhythm could change how we eat, test, and treat disease.

Read more here 👉 https://news.uq.edu.au/2026-02-tick-tock-how-shift-work-and-irregular-eating-impacts-your-liver-body-clock

IMB helps bold ideas grow from belief to scale 🌱 A spark of inspiration won Dr. Melanie Oey the 2021 Ignite Innovation S...
05/02/2026

IMB helps bold ideas grow from belief to scale 🌱

A spark of inspiration won Dr. Melanie Oey the 2021 Ignite Innovation Showcase, a philanthropically-funded prize that would later support her winning pilot data in the following year's IMB–Inflazome Translational Award, for her use of in wound dressings.

This triumph would lay the ground for securing a Research Grant, enabling Melanie to step beyond the lab and work alongside industry, transforming early-stage research into products designed to scale, partner, and deliver real-world impact. That translational mindset has now been recognised at a national level, with Melanie's recent award of an Australia’s Economic Accelerator Ignite grant. With AEA funding, and industry partners and her team is able to support their highly innovative work in cultivated meat, using breakthrough algae-based media recycling and co-cultivation to help make cheaper, greener and commercially viable.

IMB gave her ideas the conditions to grow — now Melanie has cultured innovation that’s primed to thrive.

Professor Glenn King and his team have been selected as the 2025 recipients of the SyncroPatch 384 Research Grant 🎉The ...
03/02/2026

Professor Glenn King and his team have been selected as the 2025 recipients of the SyncroPatch 384 Research Grant 🎉

The SyncroPatch 384 Research Grant is awarded through Nanion Technologies via a competitive application process, open to researchers worldwide.

How do cancer-fighting nanoparticles actually reach cancer cells? 🔬IMB researchers from the Parton Lab are tackling a ma...
01/02/2026

How do cancer-fighting nanoparticles actually reach cancer cells? 🔬

IMB researchers from the Parton Lab are tackling a major challenge in nanomedicine: designing nanoparticles that selectively kill cancer cells, and understanding how nanoparticles move through the body to reach them.

In two new ACS Nano studies, the team developed “caveospheres”—tiny drug carriers that can be directed to cancer cells—and uncovered how nanoparticle size affects their ability to move out of blood vessels and into surrounding tissues.

Together, this research helps bridge laboratory discovery with future cancer treatments. Learn more about the science behind smarter cancer therapies at the links below:

ℹ️ https://pubs.acs.org/doi/full/10.1021/acsnano.5c11452
ℹ️https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acsnano.5c21042

29/01/2026

Antibiotics revolutionised medicine, but their overuse is driving antimicrobial resistance, prompting the World Health Organisation to rank among the world’s most serious public health and development challenges.

Enter IMB's antibiotic hunter Professor Mark Blaskovich, pushing to create stronger treatments capable of outsmarting an ever‑evolving wave of resistant pathogens.

Listen to Prof. Blaskovich talk being on the frontline of drug discovery with ABC Radio National 👉 https://www.abc.net.au/listen/programs/radionational-breakfast/changing-australia-professor-mark-blaskovich-antibiotic-hunter/106272560

Congratulations Prof. Mark Blaskovich 🎉Professor Blaskovich has been selected for e‑ASIA 2025 Joint Research Program, re...
28/01/2026

Congratulations Prof. Mark Blaskovich 🎉

Professor Blaskovich has been selected for e‑ASIA 2025 Joint Research Program, recognising his research and focus on Infectious Diseases and Immunology in the field of Health Research.

The e‑ASIA program brings together funding agencies from across East and Southeast Asia to support internationally coordinated, multilateral research. With the project set to commence in 2026, Professor Blaskovich will join a multinational research team; this collaboration model is designed to accelerate innovation, strengthen regional research capacity, and address shared health and societal challenges.

A remarkable milestone, we would once again like to congratulate Mark on this achievement as a reflection of his academic excellence and ability to drive research that shapes policy, and improves global health outcomes.

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IMB is a multidisciplinary life sciences research institute. Our scientists use world-leading infrastructure to drive discoveries from genome to drug design, disease discovery application and sustainable futures. Our research is framed through centres focused on superbugs, pain, heart disease, inflammation, solar biotechnology and the genomics-disease interplay.