SPARKS LAB

Our group are working at the cutting-edge of the modern biotechnology that integrates computational and experimental approaches for rational design of therapeutic small and biologic drugs. Biologic drugs such as proteins are medicinal products extracted from living systems. Unlike small molecular drugs, they are more specific to the intended target (i.e. less toxicity) and have enjoyed much higher success rate in every phase of clinical trials. However, unlike small molecules, biologic drugs are expensive to manufacture due to low yields. The objectives of our research in this area are to increase protein drug production by codon optimisation and to design peptides or proteins with specific therapeutic effects. In addition to working in the area of biologic drug discovery, our group is actively developing the next-generation computational technique for small-molecule inhibitor design. Another area of our research is to build an integrated, clinically useful tool for predicting disease..