Rate My Professor Darren Grice

Dr. Grice's research focuses on the design, synthesis, and evaluation of novel carbohydrates and small molecules as vaccines and antimicrobials. This includes carbohydrate-based vaccines targeting pathogens such as Moraxella catarrhalis, nontypeable Haemophilus influenzae, and Moraxella ovis, which cause middle ear infections, a leading reason for childhood antibiotic prescriptions. Additional interests encompass natural product-derived compounds, including plant extracts to counteract cnidarian venoms, bioactive extracts from Australian cane toad skins with anti-inflammatory and cytokine-modulating effects, antiviral phthalic acid esters from mangrove ferns, and indolealkylamines from toad and invertebrate sources. He has secured Australian Research Council funding, including Discovery Grants with collaborators such as Professor Mark von Itzstein and Dr. Jennifer Wilson, and the Linkage Equipment Grant LE130100141. Key publications include 'Activity of alkoxyamide-based histone deacetylase inhibitors as potential anti-cancer agents' (2024, Experimental and Molecular Medicine), 'Isolation and characterisation of a heparosan capsular polysaccharide from Moraxella ovis' (2025), 'Bioengineering Outer-Membrane Vesicles for Vaccine Candidates Against Moraxella Species' (2025, Vaccines), 'Exploring the Scope of Functionalized N-Acylneuraminic Acids as Sialyltransferase Acceptors' (2025, Molecules), 'Synthesis and antibacterial activity of 6''-deoxy-6''-thio-glycosides' (2023, Clean Technologies), 'Potential Usefulness of Plant Extracts to Counteract Cnidarian Venoms' (2021), and 'Isolation of Bioactive Compounds That Relate to the Anti-Platelet Activity of Cymbopogon ambiguus' (2011, Evidence-Based Complementary and Alternative Medicine). These works demonstrate his impact in glycomics, infectious diseases, and natural products chemistry.