2026 Ferrier Public Lecture to be delivered by Professor Richard Payne
The 2026 Ferrier Public Lecture, presented annually in honour of the late Professor Robin Ferrier, will be delivered by Professor Richard Payne, Professor in Organic Chemistry and Chemical Biology and Laureate Fellow in the School of Chemistry, University of Sydney.
Professor Gary Evans, Director, Te Kāuru—Ferrier Research Institute, said “The annual Ferrier Public Lecture has grown into an event of great significance, bringing together members of the Wellington science community. We’re very pleased to have Professor Richard Payne deliver this year’s lecture, which will help broaden the applications of chemistry and biochemistry to address real-world issues.
“Richard’s work is particularly important in today’s world, with a constantly increasing need for products that can help address global public health-related matters. Leveraging natural products is clearly the more holistic approach and globally Richard is a very influential name in this space. It’s an honour to have him with us today.”
Titled Drug discovery inspired by peptide natural products, the 2026 Ferrier Public Lecture will highlight how naturally occurring structures and phenomena have led to the discovery of drug leads for a range of human conditions.
From the antibiotic penicillin to the frontline antimalarial artemisinin, natural products have always played an instrumental role in the development of new drugs. Over the past decade, enormous advances in chemistry, genomics, and proteomics have underpinned the rapid discovery of new classes of peptide molecules that serve as an exciting new frontier of natural products for the discovery of next-generation therapeutics.
In his lecture, Professor Payne will discuss strategies that have been used to leverage the privileged chemical structures and bioactivity of peptide-based natural products for the discovery of new drug leads for a range of human diseases. He will share examples, including the use of salivary proteins from blood-feeding ticks, flies, and mosquitoes, which have served as inspiration for clot-busting drugs, venom from the funnel-web spider for stroke therapy, and the modification of molecules produced by soil-dwelling bacteria as antibiotics. Professor Payne will also highlight the use of naturally occurring human peptides for the development of powerful anti-inflammatory therapeutics.
Professor Payne graduated from the University of Canterbury, New Zealand in 2002, after which he was awarded a Gates Scholarship to undertake his PhD at the University of Cambridge. On completing his doctorate, he moved to The Scripps Research Institute under the auspices of a Lindemann Postdoctoral Fellowship where he worked in the laboratory of Professor Chi-Huey Wong in the area of glycobiology. In 2008, he joined the University of Sydney as a Lecturer of Organic Chemistry within the School of Chemistry. Since 2015 he has held the position as Professor of Organic Chemistry and Chemical Biology and from 2020–2025 was an NHMRC Leadership Fellow and Deputy Director of the ARC Centre of Excellence for Innovations in Peptide and Protein Science. From January 2026 Professor Payne has been an Australian Research Council (ARC) Laureate Fellow and Director of the Centre of Excellence for Advanced Peptide and Protein Engineering.
Professor Payne’s research focuses on the design and synthesis of complex biomolecules with a view to addressing important problems in biology and medicine. His lab is recognised for the development of synthetic and semi-synthetic technologies for the assembly of large polypeptides and proteins bearing post-translational modifications including glycosylation, lipidation, phosphorylation, and sulfation. These methods have underpinned the discovery of modified peptide and protein drug leads for a range of diseases including anti-inflammatories, anti-thrombotics and anti-infectives. His research has been recognised by a number of awards including the Prime Minister’s Prize for Physical Scientist of the Year, HG Smith Medal, AJ Birch Medal and election as Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science.
The 2026 Ferrier Public Lecture will be held on Wednesday 1 April, at Lecture Theatre 1, Rutherford House, Pipitea Campus, 33 Bunny Street.