The APOBEC3 research team at Massey University led byProfessor Vyacheslav Filichev, Emeritus Professor G. B. Jameson and Dr ElenaHarjes has been awarded a prestigious Marsden Fund Grant from the Royal SocietyTe Apārangi to advance the development of novel strategies to suppress cancerevolution and drug resistance. The project focuses on targeting theDNA-mutating enzymes APOBEC3A and APOBEC3B, which drive therapeutic resistancein a wide range of cancers. The Marsden programme includes collaboration withThomas Fallon (Adelaide University, Australia) on the application ofshape-shifting bullvalene scaffolds to develop adaptive molecular inhibitors,and with Reuben S. Harris (UT San Antonio, USA) on the biological andtranslational aspects of APOBEC3-driven mutagenesis.
As part of strengthening international collaborations,Professor Vyacheslav Filichev and Emeritus Professor G. B. Jameson recentlyattended Deaminet 2026, a leading international meeting on cytidine deaminasesthat was held In Palm Springs, USA, Jan 21–23 2026. Professor Filichevdelivered an oral presentation highlighting the team’s recent success indeveloping first-in-class inhibitors of APOBEC3A, attracting strong interestfrom the global deaminase research community.
The APOBEC3 team is also pleased to welcome two newstudents: Beiqiao He, who will commence PhD studies, and Dwiki Kurniawati, whowill begin MSc research.
Welcome to MSc student Hayden Mansfield who will besupervised by Mark Waterland.
Congratulations to PhD student Qayyum Shehzad who presentedsome of his research in a seminar at the Australasian Colloid and InterfaceSymposium in Adelaide in February. Qayyum's research into plant proteins atinterfaces is funded by the Riddet Centre of Research Excellence. Hissupervisor, Catherine Whitby, also gave a presentation at the symposium, servedas one of the judges in the poster session at the conference, and was part of apanel discussing diversity and equity issues with early career researchers.
Welcome to two new PhD students: Szofia Schonberger andParidhi Chittora who are being supervised by Catherine Whitby and Tyson Dais.Szofia is funded by the Riddet Institute Centre of Research Excellence andParidhi is funded by the MacDiarmid Institute Centre of Research Excellence.
