Adjunct Professor Peter Karuso

Peter Karuso completed a PhD in 1985 from the Department of Organic Chemistry at the University of Sydney and postdoced at the University of Auckland (Dame Patricia Bergquist) and the University of Hawaii (Paul Scheuer) before obtaining a position as research scientist at the Texas A&M University. After 2.5 years in Texas, he was awarded an Alexander von Humboldt Fellowship to work with Horst Kessler at the Technische Universität München in 1989.  From there he joined Macquarie University as Lecturer in Biotechnology in the School of Chemistry and worked his way up to full Professor in the Department of Chemistry & Biomolecular Sciences (2010). He has been awarded 2 outstanding teacher awards and several research awards including the Archibald Ollé and Research Commercialisation Prizes and served as head of department (2002-2005). In 2004 he was co-founder and CSO of Fluorotechnics Pty Ltd that listed on the ASX in 2008. In 2022, he joined the University of NSW as an Adj. Professor in Biotechnology and Biomolecular Sciences and launched MINIMUM bio Pty Ltd, a biotechnology company dedicated to developing a platform technology for the rapid and agnostic identification of protein drug targets.

Our “Mercurious” platform is designed to create a new model for early-stage drug discovery. The platform harnesses an antibody drug discovery technology and repurposes it for drug target discovery, combining advances in molecular biology, next generation sequencing and machine learning into a single integrated architecture for the rapid and agnostic discovery of all the proteins, in your body, that a drug binds to to achieve its effect, with the goal of massively accelerating the rate of drug development.

Our mission is to bring the next generation of life-saving drugs to those who need it sooner and cheaper.