Arthur Christopoulos is a Professor of Pharmacology at the Monash Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences and a Principal Research Fellow at the National Health and Medical Research Council of Australia. He ranks as the top scientist in pharmacology and toxicology in Australia.

Christopoulos was born in 1968 in Melbourne of Australia, where he currently lives. He studied Pharmacology at the University of Melbourne, inspired by his chemistry teacher in high school who advised him to follow a research career.

His scientific team successfully changed the function and reaction of the heart protein.  “Now we can change the body’s own rules following this new method”, Christopoulos says.

The team’s target is to eliminate the side-effects caused by drugs and to further use the method to develop more potent drugs for several diseases. During the latest years, Christopoulos’s research focuses on the elimination of side-effects caused by drugs. Together with his team he is working on offering better treatment to patients suffering from schizophrenia and diabetes and also on eliminating the drugs’ side-effects.

The problem with most drugs is that they bind to these proteins at sites that are shared by non-target proteins. So while they produce the desired therapeutic effect, they also cause undesirable side effects. And as Christopoulos points out, “in many diseases the side effects are just as bad as the thing you’re trying to treat”.

Christopoulos’ fresh approach to drug discovery has created a buzz in his field, with major pharmaceutical companies investing heavily in programs that use his methods.

Arthur Christopoulos has won several distinctions and awards, like the John J. Abel Award in Pharmacology in 2013 for his outstanding research and also the Michael Rand Medal. Moreover, together with professor Patrick Sexton, he won the Vice-Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Innovation and External Collaboration for working with the French Laboratories focusing in cardiology, diabetes and other diseases.