in 1997. She is currently completing her Ph.D. degree in the Centre for Drug Design and Development. Her Ph.D. studies are directed at designing and developing competitive reversible protease inhibitors, particularly for serine and cysteine proteases involved in viral and parasitic infections, Alzheimer's disease, and apoptosis. Giovanni (John) Abbenante received his B.Sc. (Hons) degree from the Department of Chemistry of the University of Adelaide and his Ph.D. degree on the synthesis of GABA b receptor antagonists from Flinders University in 1992. He undertook postdoctoral studies on the synthesis of ladderanes at Central Queensland University and of HIV-1 protease inhibitors at the University of Queensland. He is currently a Senior Research Officer in the Chemistry Group of the Centre for Drug Design and Development with interests in drug design and in the synthesis of protease inhibitors, macrocycles, receptor antagonists, and peptidomimetics. David P. Fairlie received a B.Sc. (Hons) degree from the University of Adelaide and a Ph.D. from the University of South Wales and did postdoctoral research at Stanford University and University of Toronto. He has held research/ teaching appointments in six Australian universities and has led the Chemistry Group in the Centre for Drug Design and Development since 1991. He is Scientific Director of Promics Pty Ltd. Research interests are in chemical synthesis (organic, inorganic), molecular recognition (DNA-, RNA-, protein-, metalbinding compounds), peptide and protein mimetics, enzyme inhibitors and receptor antagonists for viral infections, inflammatory disorders, cancers, and neurodegenerative diseases, and in mechanisms of chemical reactions, biological processes, disease development, and drug action.