A/Professor John Quinn
A/Professor John Quinn
Dr John Quinn is currently an Australian Research Council Future Fellow & Senior Research Fellow in the Department of Chemical Engineering, jointly appointed with the Drug Delivery, Disposition and Dynamics Theme at Monash Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences. Prior to his current role Dr Quinn held appointments as Dean of Residents, New College Village UNSW, and as a Technical Assistant at a major Australian firm of patent and trade mark attorneys. His initial scientific training was conducted at UNSW in the discipline of Industrial Chemistry, and he obtained his PhD from the same university in 2003. Dr Quinn then conducted postdoctoral work in the laboratory of Prof. Frank Caruso at the University of Melbourne (2003-2004), and was an Australian Postdoctoral Fellow in the same group from 2005-2007.
Research Interests
The rational design of new materials promises to create exciting new opportunities for pharmaceutical science. In particular, the development of new excipients that can potentially offset the side-effects and disadvantages of underutilized drugs offers obvious benefits for the health sciences. Dr Quinn’s research is focused in this area and can be broadly categorized into (i) materials capable of augmenting / interrupting cell signalling pathways; (ii) new methodologies for functionalising biomolecules with polymers; and (iii) new materials for improving the oral delivery of poorly water soluble drugs. To achieve these goals he employs polymer synthesis techniques such as reversible addition-fragmentation chain transfer (RAFT) polymerization and Cu(0)-mediated living radical polymerization. Dr Quinn also employs analytical techniques from surface chemistry such as quartz crystal microgravimetry (QCM) to probe the interactions between specifically designed polymers and biomolecules.