Monash and partners to build new lab to fast-track drug invention, trials and commercialisation

Biological crystals that will be blasted with X-rays.

22 July 2026

Monash University is partnering with key institutions to launch a $2.9 million national project – delivering a robotic laboratory capable of drastically speeding up the invention, trials and commercialisation of medicines by Australian researchers.

The nationally accessible facility, backed by a Medical Research Future Fund (MRFF) National Critical Research Infrastructure grant, will house Australia’s first automated system for high-throughput X-ray crystallography, often referred to as HTX, at the Australian Synchrotron in Clayton.

HTX is a powerful scientific technique that involves blasting tiny biological crystals with X-rays to map the exact 3D shape of disease-causing proteins – revealing how a molecule binds to its target.

Professor Martin Scanlon, Head of Medicinal Chemistry at the Monash Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences (MIPS) in the Faculty of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences, said the new technology would provide “incalculable ability” to boost capability and capacity while saving time and accelerating productivity.

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