Associate ProfessorFred Pfeffer

I am traditional academic and my role involves teaching research and service (I am currently Chair of the University Thesis Examination Committee).

I received my PhD from Deakin University in 2001 and then spent a year lecturing at Trinity College Dublin (TCD). For a further 14 months I worked as a postdoctoral research fellow at TCD with Professor Thorfinnur Gunnlaugsson on the synthesis and evaluation of naphthalimide based fluorescent anion sensors. I returned to Deakin in 2004 to the faculty of Science and Technology as a lecturer and I am now an Associate Professor. I continue to pursue research in the field of supramolecular chemistry and have also pursued several successful medicinal chemistry programs including the synthesis of new antibiotics, anticancer agents and also insulin sensitising antidiabetic agents. At the core of these programs is the appreciation and understanding of how molecules interact and interconvert--fundamental topics in chemistry. As of May 2025 I have >100 peer reviewed publications, over 6000 citations and a h-index of 34.

Research interests vary from the study and application of of fundamental molecular interactions (supramolecular chemistry) to forensic chemistry and the medicinal chemistry of antibacterial, anti-diabetic and anticancer compounds. My group has ongoing interests in the synthesis of preorganised scaffolds and their use in constructing larger supramolecular architectures and the recognition of anionic species.  Similarly the group has, for a number of years, studied the synthesis and application of novel 1,8-naphthalimide based probes for both sensing and imaging. More recent endeavours have involved collaboration with the Victorian Police Forensic Services Department in which we have identified potention routes for the chemical masking of illicit materials.  Another more recent collaboration with Richard Williams from the School of Medicine has focussed on the customisation of bioscaffolds for a range of applications including wound healing.  This work has been performed in partnership with international collaborators in Delhi (TERI - India).