Mark Blaskovich is an ‘antibiotic hunter’ and Director of Translation for the Institute for Molecular Bioscience at The University of Queensland, as well as Director of the ARC Industrial Transformation Training Centre for Environmental and Agricultural Solutions to Antimicrobial Resistance.

A medicinal chemist with 15 years of industrial drug development experience, since 2010 he has been developing new antibiotics, non-antibiotic therapies and diagnostics to detect and treat resistant bacterial and fungal infections. He cofounded the Community for Open Antimicrobial Drug Discovery (CO-ADD), a global ‘crowdsourcing’ antibiotic discovery initiative that has collaborated with over 300 research groups, and has led multiple industry collaborations focused on antibiotic development.

Mark’s research has led to over 140 publications, 11 patent families with more than 50 granted patents, over $25M in funding, and recognition as a Highly Cited Researcher. He is co-inventor of a first-in-class melanocortin-5 receptor antagonist that completed phase 2b human testing as a treatment for acne.