A/Prof Ben Greatrex
Associate Professor - School of Health
Biography
Assoc. Professor Ben Greatrex is an academic and researcher whose work sits at the interface of organic synthesis, medicinal chemistry, and natural products chemistry, with a focus on the design and preparation of biologically relevant small molecules. His research draws on both renewable feedstocks and bioactive natural product scaffolds to develop new chemical entities and to explore how molecular structure influences properties such as stability, reactivity, and functional performance in biological contexts.
A major strand of the research group involves sustainable synthetic methodology, including stereoselective synthesis of complex, three-dimensional molecules and modular platforms for molecular discovery. Recent work has focussed on biomass pyrolysis to generate small molecule feedstocks. The group also undertakes phytochemical and chemotaxonomic investigations of Australian flora, applying modern analytical and spectroscopic methods to identify and characterise specialised metabolites and to better understand chemical diversity within and between plant lineages.
