Research Activities

The McGowan laboratory is interested in characterising novel molecular drug targets. The growing problem of drug resistance within the microbial world underlies the critical need to develop new treatments to prevent and control resistant infections. Therefore, the development of new therapeutic approaches for the treatment of microbial infections is a critically important goal. Our lab has a strong research focus in the design of novel anti-malarial drugs as well as other parasitic and bacterial diseases. Primarily we are a structural biology laboratory using techniques in X-ray crystallography, biochemistry and biophysics to analyse our proteins of interest. We use this mechanistic information to design inhibitors or analogues with potential applications in human medicine.