Robert Peter Millar 10th Australian Peptide Conference 2013

Robert Peter Millar

Bob Millar is Director of the Mammal Research Institute at the University of Pretoria, Director of the MRC Receptor Biology Unit at the University of Cape Town and Research Fellow at the Centre of Integrative Physiology at the University of Edinburgh. Previously he was Director of the MRC Human Reproductive Sciences Unit in Edinburgh which comprised over 100 researchers. He secured over 70 million pounds during his tenure. The Unit research focused on pathologies of female and male reproductive tissues (eg prostate, breast and ovarian cancers).He was founder of the reproductive health company, Ardana Biosciences which raised 73 million pounds, was listed on the LSE, and took three drugs into the market. He has published 400 papers and 18 patents, which received over 10,000 citations. Bob’s research focuses on peptide regulators of reproductive hormones. He pioneered the discovery of the GnRH prohormone, novel GnRH structures, and the first cloning of the GnRH I and GnRH II receptors. His laboratory delineated GnRH binding sites and the molecular mechanisms underlying receptor activation and coupling. He has participated in, and led, a number of programmes developing GnRH analogues for use in a wide range of clinical pathologies. His group’s research on direct antiproliferative effects of selective GnRH analogues on tumour cells has revealed the novel concept of ligand-induced-selective-signalling by GnRH analogues which has implications for improved selectivity in the development of new GnRH therapeutics and other GPCR targets. His research encompasses a continuum of basic through to clinical and he has been involved in successfully taking ten neuropeptides and analogues into the clinic. One of these (Triptorelin) received FDA approval for prostatic cancer. Most recently he has focused on novel GPCRs involved in reproduction, appetite, inflammation, cell invasion and angiogenesis with a particular focus on the RFamides such as metastin/kisspeptin, NKB, gonadotropin-inhibitory-hormone and the prokineticins. He developed kisspeptin antagonists as potential therapeutics in hormone-dependent diseases. The functional ‘rescue’ of human GPCRs with inactivating mutations by small molecule orthosteric and allosteric analogues is a new interest.