Istvan Toth

Biography

 Professor Istvan Toth PhD, DSc is a Chemical Engineer, ARC Australia Professorial Fellow, Chair in Biological Chemistry and Professor of Pharmacy at the University of Queensland. His major research interest these days is drug, vaccine and gene delivery. He is active in research commercialisation as one of the key founders of Alchemia (ASX listed), Implicit Bioscience, Neurotide and TetraQ. He has more than 300 peer-reviewed publications and 43 patents. He is the Editor-in-Chief of Current Drug Delivery, and Drug Delivery Letters. He is a Fellow of the Royal Australian Chemical Institute (FRACI) and the Queensland Academy of Science and Art (FQA).

Research Interest

 Professor Toth works to develop synthetic peptide- and nanoparticle-based vaccines including the development of delivery platforms and safe synthetic adjuvants. These vaccines target group A streptococcus, tropical diseases like malaria, hookworm and blood flukes, and the treatment of established tumors like those caused by human papilloma virus infection. Professor Toth also works to improve the stability and delivery route of existing medicines or promising drug leads. Recent drugs of interest have been the natural pain peptides Enkephalin and Endomorphin-1, an orally available version of reproductive hormone Gonadotropin Hormone Releasing Hormone, and combination antibiotics that reduce bacterial resistance.