Dr Dorothy Wai is a research fellow in the Medicinal Chemistry theme at the Monash Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences. She completed her PhD in 2017 at the University of Sydney using NMR and other biophysical techniques to study mammalian gene regulation. Since moving to MIPS, she has worked on highly collaborative fragment-based drug discovery projects against protein targets in type 2 diabetes and graft-versus-host disease, utilising her experience in molecular biology, protein biochemistry and structural biology. Her current research focuses on developing peptides that inhibit the potassium channel Kv1.3, a novel molecular target in Alzheimer’s disease, with the aim of generating therapeutic leads that have improved brain uptake and pharmacokinetic properties.