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Using Medicinal Chemistry Tools to Solve Biological Problems
My research focuses on the synthesis of interesting chemical scaffolds or drugs targeting cancers, infectious diseases
Dr Yeong Keng Yoon yeong. keng. yoon @ monash. edu
Senior Lecturer and Associate Head of School( Industry Engagement and Enterprising)
Expertise Small molecule drug discovery Short peptide drug discovery Semi-synthesis of bioactive compounds
Achievement / Award
Top 2 % Scientist( Stanford /
Elsevier)( 2024 & 2025)
Dean’ s Award for Excellence in Honours Supervision( 2023)
PVC’ s Award for Excellence in
Research( 2021) and neurological disorders. Our group uses a parallel synthesis approach to generate libraries of compounds and our current interest is in retooling old drugs through rational drug design. Our design
strategies for synthesis include computer-aided-drug-design, Structure-
Activity Relationship( SAR), hybridisation and bioisosteric replacements.
In addition, our research encompasses the synthesis of short peptides targeting cancers, infectious diseases and neurological disorders. Our group uses the solid-phase-peptide-synthesis method to generate series of short peptides. Short peptides can act as therapeutics or as fragments to improve the physicochemical characteristics of biologically active molecules.
Our work also explores the semisynthesis of naturally occurring bioactive compounds of interest to improve their pharmacological properties.
The core theme of my research revolves around medicinal chemistry, overlapping organic chemistry, biology and medicine
SCHOOL OF SCIENCE CAPABILITIES