ProfessorRobert Vandenberg

Professor Vandenberg's research interests have focused on understanding how neurotransmitter transporters and receptors work. These proteins play key roles in regulating neurotransmission in the brain and are also the targets of a number of theraputic drugs and drugs of abuse. The laboratory uses a number of state-of-the-art molecular and biophysical techniques to address questions as to how these proteins bind neurotransmitters, how drugs interact with and modulate transporters and how these processes go wrong in disease states, such as Chronic Pain, Schizophrenia and Ischemia following a stroke.

A major focus of our work is on the development of novel compounds that inhibit glycine transporters. These compounds represent a new class of transport inhibitors and show considerable potential as analgesics for the treatment of chronic pain. Rob Vandenberg leads a multi-pronged approach to the drug development program funded by the NHMRC and NIH (USA) which includes collaborators at USYD (Mac Christie, Sarasa Mohammadi), UTS (Tristan Rawling), ANU (Megan O'Mara), Albany College of Pharmacy in New York (Chris Cioffi) and the University of Copenhagen (Claus Loland). Our work encompasses drug design, medicinal chemistry, understanding mechanisms of inhibition, structural biology, molecular dynamics simulations, synaptic physiology and behavioural pharmacology. We are also investigating the pharmacokinetic properties of these compounds with the aim of developing drugs that can be used in the clinic.

We have recently expanded our research interest to study ligand gated ion channels as targets for mitocides and insectocides. We have programs designed to develop toxins to treat Varroa mite infections in honeybees and also for insectocides for erradicating fire ants