Rate My Professor Brian Monk

Honorary Associate Professor Brian Monk holds a BSc (Hons) from Victoria University of Wellington and a PhD from Monash University. Since 1991, he has been at the University of Otago in the Department of Oral Sciences, Faculty of Dentistry, where he was promoted to Associate Professor around 2013-2014 and now serves in an honorary capacity. As head of the Molecular Biosciences Laboratory at the Sir John Walsh Research Institute, he oversees a PC2-registered facility equipped for microbiology, biochemistry, molecular biology, and cell biology studies, including specialized equipment such as ultracentrifuges, FPLC systems, real-time PCR, and anaerobic chambers.

Monk's research centers on molecular microbiology and structure-directed antifungal drug discovery. He utilizes molecular genetic manipulation of yeast and bacterial systems to express membrane protein drug targets like P-type ATPases, fungal glucan synthase, cytochrome P450 enzymes including lanosterol 14α-demethylase (CYP51), drug efflux pumps, transcription factors, and enzymes in riboflavin biosynthesis. His team has determined high-resolution X-ray crystal structures of fungal CYP51 and Candida glabrata lumazine synthase. In 2003, he patented a yeast expression system employed globally for membrane proteins from pathogenic fungi, plants, and humans. Notable publications include 'Efflux-mediated antifungal drug resistance' (Clinical Microbiology Reviews, 2009), 'Oral Candida: clearance, colonization, or candidiasis?' (Journal of Dental Research, 1995), 'Architecture of a single membrane spanning cytochrome P450 suggests constraints that orient the catalytic domain relative to a bilayer' (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2014), 'Structural insights into binding of the antifungal drug fluconazole to Saccharomyces cerevisiae lanosterol 14α-demethylase' (Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy, 2015), and 'Outwitting multidrug resistance to antifungals' (Science, 2008). He has received Health Research Council of New Zealand funding, including a $1,197,552 project grant in 2016 for next-generation antifungals targeting CYP51. His contributions elucidate resistance mechanisms and advance novel antifungal development.