Group Leader
Associate Professor Karen Gregory
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Associate Professor Karen Gregory is Senior Lecturer and former Australian Research Council Future Fellow. She leads the Endocrine and Neuropharmacology lab at Monash Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences (MIPS), Australia.
Associate Professor Gregory is internationally recognised expert in analytical and molecular pharmacology of G protein coupled receptors (GPCRs), focusing on promising therapeutic targets for neuropsychiatric and neurological disorders. After postdoctoral training at Vanderbilt Center for Neuroscience Drug Discovery, Karen returned to Australia in 2013 to establish her independent program.
Associate Professor Gregory’s research seeks to understand novel paradigms of drug action at GPCRs such as allosteric and biased pharmacology with the goal of using these insights to facilitate rational drug discovery. To date, she has published >40 research articles in this field.
Team Members
Dr Shane Hellyer – postdoctoral fellow (molecular pharmacology)
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Shane completed his undergraduate, honours and PhD studies at the University of Otago in Dunedin, New Zealand. His PhD, completed in 2015, focused on understanding the mechanism of action of marine pinnatoxins, specifically their actions on nicotinic acetylcholine receptors. In 2016 Shane moved to the Monash Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences, into the lab of Associate Professor Karen Gregory. His postdoctoral work has been mostly based on understanding the function of metabotropic glutamate receptors (mGlus), specifically mGlu1 and mGlu5, and how the complex signalling of these receptors can be modulated by small molecules in the context of neuropsychiatric and neurodegenerative disorders. He also has a growing interest in the involvement of mGlu1 in spinocerebellar ataxias and the tractability of mGlu1 as a potential drug target in these rare genetic conditions.
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Dr Monica Langiu – postdoctoral fellow (in vivo pharmacology)
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Monica is a behavioural neuroscientist interested in understanding the role of GPCR functions in the brain, focusing in particular on cognition and motivation. She has >10 years experience with rodent behaviour applied to psychiatric and neurodegenerative diseases. She has received a master’s degree in Neuropsychobiology from the University of Cagliari (Italy) and a PhD in Pharmacy from the Goethe University in Frankfurt am Main (Germany).
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Muhammad A. Razzak – PhD candidate (2018 - 2022)
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Jesse Dangerfield – PhD candidate co-supervised with MedChem (2020 - 2023)
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Le Vi Dinh – PhD candidate co-supervised with MedChem (2020 - 2023)
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Scott Wong – PhD candidate MedChem (2021 - 2024)
Scott holds a Bachelor of Pharmaceutical Science (Honours) degree from Monash University in Melbourne, Australia since 2020. Under the supervision of Associate Professor Ben Capuano and Professor Peter Scammells, Scott’s Honours project focused on the design and synthesis of MAP4K4 inhibitors for the treatment of Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS). With continual interest and bursarship from the Cyril Tonkin Scholarship, Scott is able to pursue research into neurodegenerative diseases across the Capuano, Scammells and Gregory groups at the Monash Institute of Pharmaceutical Science. His PhD candidature combines Chemical Biology techniques to design, synthesise and biologically evaluate biased allosteric modulators of the metabotropic glutamate receptor subtype 5 (mGlu5); a protein receptor known to be implicated in a wider range of neurodegenerative diseases (e.g. Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, ALS, etc.). In his leisure, Scott enjoys playing various racket games, ball sports and volunteering as a barista.
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Yuyang Wang – Honours student (2022)
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Haobo Zhao – Honours student (2022)
Haobo Zhao (Mike) is an Honours student from China. He completed his bachelor degree of pharmaceutical science at Monash University and his honours project investigates the effect of different negative allosteric modulator on the signalling of metabotropic glutamate receptor subtype 5 (mGlu5). Mike enjoys playing soccer with his friends and he wants to continue his research after his Honours year.
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Liam Sheedy – Honours student co-supervised with MedChem (2022)
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