Nial J. Wheate

Nial J. Wheate (PhD, FRACI, CChem, FHEA) is an Australian pharmaceutical chemist at the University of Sydney.

After completing high school at Copland College in Canberra, Australia, he was appointed an officer in the Royal Australian Navy and attended the Australian Defence Force Academy, where he studied for a Bachelor of Science degree double majoring in chemistry, in 1997 with Class I honours for his degree . After a short appointment as a Visiting Military Scholar, Nial undertook a PhD under the supervision of Associate Professor J. Grant Collins within the School of Physical, Environmental and Mathematical Sciences, at University College, University of New South Wales, with a thesis: Platinum Anticancer Drugs in 2001.

Over the next three years Dr Wheate was posted to the School of Air Navigation (now the School of Air Combat), RAAF Base East Sale, the Air Coordination and Policy Agency, the Joint Health Support Agency and the Sea Power Centre – Australia. He left the Navy in 2005, receiving the Australian Defence Medal in 2007. He was then appointed a Senior Fellow in the School of Biomedical and Health Sciences at the University of Western Sydney before appointment as a lecturer in medicinal chemistry in the Strathclyde Institute of Pharmacy and Biomedical Sciences at the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow, Scotland. Currently he is a senior lecturer within the Faculty of Pharmacy at University of Sydney. In 2013 he was appointed the Head of Cancer research within the Faculty of Pharmacy.

Dr Wheate's research interests are in the field of metal-based drugs for use in chemotherapy. His research group's work includes drug design and synthesis, encapsulation of drugs in macrocyles, attachment of drugs to nanoparticles, drug solid state stability and polymorphism (materials science), drug mechanisms of action, improving drug solubility through the formation of cocrystals, drug metabolism, drug preformulation and formulation, and drug-excipient interactions in various dosage forms. Recent highlighted work has included the development of magnetically directed drug delivery for platinum drugs.

He is best known for his work on multinuclear platinum-based drugs and the drug delivery applications of cucurbiturils.

In 2013 he was made Fellow of the Royal Australian Chemical Institute in recognition of his achievements in cancer researchand is also a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy.

He was previously an associate editor of the Australian Journal of Chemistry and is a current editor of the Source Journal of Pharmaceutical Science.

In addition to his research, Dr Wheate is committed to science communication. He has previously written for Australasian Science Magazine and is a regular contributor on The Conversation (website). Whilst most of his general interest articles are on the topic of cancer he has also written about how drugs are named and the potential health risks of alcohol powder. In June 2014, he was appointed to The Conversation (website)'s Community Council. The Community Council is a group of academics and readers who help moderate the site and improve the quality of discussions.

Dr Wheate has also published in a variety of other areas including military justice, naval history, weapons of mass destruction and he has written a novel titled Whikatak Island.

In addition to his cancer research, Dr Wheate is committed to service to the community. He is a volunteer with the New South Wales State Emergency Service and is a St John Ambulance Australia First Responder.