José Francisco

Biography

José has managed international and interdisciplinary groups working in antimicrobial drug discovery at GSK and its legacy companies for 16 years. His areas of responsibility have included antibacterials, antifungals, antimalarials and antituberculars. Previously to joining GSK, José worked in academic positions doing research on bacterial cell walls and the mode of action of beta-lactams (The Rockefeller University, New York) and in yeast cell biology (Biozentrum of Basel University, Basel). He has contributed to the elucidation of the structure of pneumococcal cell wall peptidoglycan, the publication of the first drug resistant pneumococcal genome, the discovery of the molecular targets for the sordarin antifungals, the development and implementation of methods for large scale phenotypic screening in malaria and TB and the progression of antifungal (sordarin) and malaria (4-(1H)-pyridones) drug discovery projects to pre-clinical and clinical development. José is currently associate Professor of Microbiology at Monash University (Melbourne), where he is continuing work on antimalarial targets.

Research Interest

Pharmaceutical Sciences