Prof Maree Smith

Director CIPDD

Welcome to CIPDD

At the CIPDD, we are excited that our research, directed at bringing innovation into the drug development “toolkit” i.e. into the testing methods used for new drug development, has the potential to contribute significantly to improving the efficiency, predictive ability and cost-effectiveness of the methods used to develop new pharmaceuticals for human use.

CIPDD research is often conducted in collaboration with industry partners to facilitate application of the new testing methods developed by CIPDD scientists to the industry partners’ compounds as a means of accelerating the new drug development process.

About CIPDD

The Centre for Integrated Preclinical Drug Development (CIPDD) has state-of-the-art physical infrastructure and is located on the St Lucia and Herston Campuses of The University of Queensland (UQ).

The CIPDD’s research and training activities are dedicated to bringing innovation into the testing methods used for the preclinical development of potential new therapeutics as a means of improving the productivity of the global biopharmaceutical industry. Our highly skilled team of research leaders and scientists are currently supervising a range of research projects being undertaken by PhD, Honours and other research students whose projects are aimed at bringing innovation into Drug Development “Toolkit”.

The CIPDD supports the activities of TetraQ (CIPDD’s commercial arm) which is a widely recognised high quality contract research organisation focused on providing preclinical drug development R&D services to biopharmaceutical companies.

A recent CIPDD initiative has been the establishment of the Hub of Organics Analysis, which provides access for UQ researchers to the CIPDD’s expertise and know-how in the measurement of organic molecules (and peptides) using leading-edge infrastructure in a quality systems accredited environment.

The CIPDD also provides training and education initiatives through RHD student supervision and through the provision of short courses that provide opportunities for UQ researchers to hear it from ‘the experts’ in seminar and workshop format covering topics ranging from ‘what is good lab practice (GLP)?’  to ‘How to get a potential therapeutic out of the drug discovery laboratory and into the market?’