Craig Williams
Professor
Department of Chemistry & Molecular Science
The University of Queensland
Australia
Biography
After completing my BSc (Hons) and PhD (1997) at Flinders University of South Australia I was an Alexander von Humboldt Fellow at the Georg-August-Universität, Göttingen, Germany from 1997-1999 and an Australian National University Post-doctoral Fellow at the Research School of Chemistry (1999-2000), Canberra, Australia. Appointment to my first academic position was in 2000 at the University of Queensland and now I hold the position of Associate professor curently supported by an Australian Research Council Future Fellowship.
Research Interest
Our research focus concentrates on three areas: 1) investigating strategies towards the total synthesis of very complex natural products (including for example the Vibsanin family, Diterpene Alkaloids, and tetranortriterpenes), and 2) designing and discovering novel biologically active molecules for use as medicines (design and synthesis of novel entities for the treatment of cancer, in collaboration with Prof. Peter Parsons Queensland Institute of Medical Research, Alzheimer’s in collaboration with A/Prof. Helen Cooper of (QBI) and A/Prof. Peter Dodd (SCMB), and Pain in collaboration with Prof. Maree Smith (UQ Pharmancy,TetraQ). Research area 1 is viewed as a medium to exercise and increase scholarly learning in that extremely complex targets are approached, which ultimately prepare the group for solving problems and producing successful outcomes for research area 2. In addition, we 1) design and develop new synthetic methods for new modes of constructing chemical bonds that are synthetically useful; 2) enjoy dabbling in physical organic and computational chemistry; and 3) have a strong industrial collaboration with EcoBiotics Ltd in the area of natural product isolation/elucidation. Collaborators in these spaces include:
