Faculty of Science, Engineering and Built Environment

School of Life and Environmental Sciences

Dr Fred Pfeffer
  Phone   +61 3 522 71439
Email   fred.pfeffer@deakin.edu.au
Position   Senior Lecturer
Campus   Geelong
Research grouping   Chemistry and Forensic Sciences

Dr Pfeffer received his PhD from Deakin University in 2001. He then spent a year lecturing at Trinity
College Dublin (TCD) then a further 14 months at TCD as a postdoctoral research fellow working with
Professor Thorfinnur Gunnlaugsson on the synthesis and evaluation of fluorescent anion sensors.

Dr Pfeffer returned to Deakin in 2004 to the faculty of Science and Technology as a lecturer and was
appointed senior Lecturer in 2009. He continues to pursue research in the field of supramolecular anion
recognition chemistry but has also developed several successful medicinal chemistry programs including
the synthesis of new antibiotics and also insulin sensitising antidiabetic agents. At the core of these
programs is the appreciation and understanding of how molecules interact and interconvert —fundamental
topics in chemistry.

As at Jan 2013 he has 45 peer reviewed publications, over 1500 citations and a H-index of 18.

Research interests

  1. Supramolecular anion recognition and sensing using conformationally preorganised frameworks (collaboration with Prof Thorfinnur Gunnlaugsson from TCD Ireland)
  2. Synthesis of new antibiotics based on polymyxins and the defensins (collaboration with Prof Roger Nation and Dr Jian Li at Monash MIPS)
  3. New methodology for heterocyclic antidiabetic agents (Collaboration with Dr Scott Stewart from UWA and Prof Ken Walder and Dr Nicky Konstantopoulos from MRU Deakin and Dr Guy Krippner from Verva)


Career

1996 BSc hons (Deakin)
2001 PhD (Deakin)
2001–2004 Contract lectureship and postdoctoral fellow (Trinity College Dublin)
2004 Lectureship (Deakin)
2009 Senior Lecturer (Deakin)

Key publications

Lowe, Adam J.; Long, Ben M.; Pfeffer, Frederick M. (2012) Examples of Regioselective Anion Recognition among a Family of Two‑, Three‑, and Four-“Armed” Bis‑, Tris‑, and Tetrakis(thioureido) [n]Polynorbornane hosts Journal Of Organic Chemistry 77 (19), 8507–8517

Duke, RM; Veale, EB; Pfeffer, FM; Kruger, PE; Gunnlaugsson, T (2010) Colorimetric and fluorescent anion sensors: an overview of recent developments in the use of 1,8-naphthalimide-based chemosensors Chemical Society Reviews 39 , 3936-3953

L. C. Henderson, J. Li, R. L. Nation, T. Velkov and F. M. Pfeffer (2010) Developing an anion host for lipid A binding and antibacterial activity Chemical Communications 18, 3197-3199

F. M. Pfeffer and A. J. Lowe (2008) Size matters—strong binding of the terephthalate dianion by thiourea functionalised fused [n]polynorbornane hosts Chemical Communications 16, 1971-1873

L. D. Van Vliet, T. Ellis, P. J. Foley, L. Liu, F. M. Pfeffer, R. A. Russell, R. N. Warrener, F. Hollfelder and M. J. Waring (2007) Molecular Recognition of DNA by Rigid [n]-Polynorbornane-Derived Bifunctional Intercalators: Synthesis and Evaluation of their Binding Properties Journal of Medicinal Chemistry 50 , 2326–2340

View entire list of audited publications

Professional activities

Member ACS, RACI
Refereree for ACS & RSC journals amongst others
Co-organiser for Pacifichem
Initiated SCiNZA symposium series (Supramolecular Chemistry in New Zealand and Australia)

Related links

Thorri's home page at TCD Ireland
www.tcd.ie/Chemistry/staff/peo ple/gunnlaugsson.php

Professor Roger Nation at Monash
www.pharm.monash.edu.au/depart ments/pharmpract/staff/rnation .html

the Metabolic Research Unit (MRU) at Deakin
http://www.deakin.edu.au/hmnbs /mru/

 

Postdoctoral fellows

NameProject title
Luke Henderson (2008-2010)New antibiotics inspired by nature (Alfred Deakin Scheme) Trent Ashton (2010- )New Antidiabetic Agents - LP100100087  

 

PhD students

Student nameThesis title
Adam Lowe (awarded)Anion recognition using conformationally preorganised [n]polynorbornane hosts. Now at QuantaLife Inc. California Dan Priebbenow (awarded)A Novel Palladium-Catalysed Approach to Functionalised N-Heterocycles. Now Von Humboldt Fellow at University of Aachen Megan Thornton (awarded)Functionalised flavonoids for use as designed multiple ligands. Now Lecturer in chemistry, Faculty of Health, Deakin University, Burwood Ben Long (writing thesis)Polynorbornane based antibiotics mimicking vancomycin Simren Khosa (writing thesis)A new class of membrane permeabilising antimicrobial peptide mimics Mark Johnstone (3nd year)Supramolecular chemistry of functionalised polynorbornane frameworks Cassi Fleming (3nd year)New small heterocycle synthesis and the development of selective HDAC inhibitors Shane Hickey (2st year)New norbornane peptide hybrids as antimicrobial agents Ryan Robson (1st Year)New supramolecular applications of Diffusion NMR spectroscopy  

 

Honours students

Student nameThesis title Mark Johnstone (2010)Conformationally preorganised anion sensors using excmier formation and FRET based systems Shane Hickey (2011)Small conformationally organised poycationic antimicrobials Matt Wride (2011)Antimicrobial polymers using a ROMP approach Genevieve Crowle (2012)functionalised silk nanofibres as scaffolds for tissue engineering Ryan Robson (2012)Antibiotics targetting gram positive bacteria Kathleen Beggs (2013)Rigidified bis-prolinamides for organocatalysis Jordan Engstrom (2013)Indicator displacement assay for anions  

 

Teaching areas

Organic Chemistry at all year levels.
Unit chair for SBC214 Organic Chemistry and SBC318 Synthetic and Medicinal Chemistry


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8th February 2013