Title: Structural and mechanistic enzymology and protein chemistry

Speaker: Dr. Ivanhoe Leung

This talk will cover our work on the application of biophysical techniques to study proteins and enzymes from structural and mechanistic perspectives, with an aim to help solve some of the world’s most urgent challenges. Three topics will be covered. I will first report our work in targeting bacterial enzymes to tackle infectious diseases and antibiotic resistance. We will then discuss our work on the plant ethylene-forming enzyme to elucidate how plants regulate their growth and development at the protein level. Finally, we will talk about our recent work on harnessing enzyme technology to degrade environmental pollutants.

1. Kwai, B. X. C.; Collins, A. J.; Middleditch, M. J.; Sperry, J.; Bashiri, G.; Leung, I. K. H. Itaconate is a Covalent Inhibitor of the Mycobacterium tuberculosis Isocitrate Lyase. RSC Med. Chem. 2021, 12, 57–61.

2. Bhusal, R. P.; Jiao, W.; Kwai, B. X. C.; Reynisson, J.; Collins, A. J.; Sperry, J.; Bashiri, G.; Leung, I. K. H. Acetyl-CoA-Mediated Activation of Mycobacterium tuberculosis Isocitrate Lyase 2. Nat. Commun. 2019, 10, 4639.

3. Son, S. J.; Huang, R.; Squire, C. J.; Leung, I. K. H. MCR-1: A Promising Target for Structure-Based Design of Inhibitors to Tackle Polymyxin Resistance. Drug Discov. Today 2019, 24, 206–216.

About the speaker

Dr Ivanhoe Leung is a Senior Lecturer in Biological Chemistry with the School of Chemistry and the Bio21 Molecular Science & Biotechnology Institute at the University of Melbourne. He attained his undergraduate and doctorate degrees in Chemistry at the University of Oxford. Following a postdoctoral fellowship in the same groups, he joined the University of Auckland as a lecturer in 2014. He was appointed as a co-deputy director of the Centre for Green Chemical Science at the University of Auckland in 2018, and in 2019, he was awarded the University of Auckland Early Career Research Excellence Award. Dr Leung relocated his laboratory to the University of Melbourne in February 2021. The Leung Research Group conducts multidisciplinary research to study proteins and enzymes with a focus on protein structure, function and modulation.