Dr. Phuc Ung
Post-doctoral Fellow
Room 34-H-44
+41 44 635 46 84
phuc.ung@gassergroup.com
Phuc was born in Can Tho, Vietnam. His family immigrated to Australia as refugees after the Vietnamese civil war. Like many Vietnamese-Australians, he was ridiculed in school because his name sounds like a swear word often used for endearment by Australians in conversations with their mates. He even made the front page of a local newspaper for having a funny name. Because of this, he grew up with a lot of rage and went to many dojos to practice martial arts. He always entered with such fury that it impaired all his perceptions and often got his ass kicked. Phuc no longer believes in violence and is now at peace with his funny name. He has resorted to channeling his energy towards a more worthy fight by joining the group of Prof. Gilles Gasser to fight cancer.
Awards
2014 Victorian Postdoctoral Research Fellowship Award
2009 Australian Postgraduate Award
Publications
[7] Biomolecule detection in porous silicon based microcavities via europium luminescence enhancement. S.N.A. Jenie, Z. Du, S.J.P. McInnes, P. Ung, B. Graham, S.E. Plush and N.H. Voelcker. J. Mater. Chem. B. 2014, 2, 7694–7703.
[6] Tripeptide motifs in biology: targets for peptidomimetic design. P. Ung and D.A. Winkler. J. Med. Chem. 2011, 54, 1111–1125.
[5] An iminodiacetic acid based lanthanide binding tag for paramagnetic exchange NMR spectroscopy. J.D. Swarbrick, P. Ung, S. Chhabra and B. Graham. Angew. Chem. Intl. Ed. 2011, 50, 4403–4406.
[4] Engineering of a bis-chelator motif into a protein α–helix for rigid lanthanide binding and paramagnetic NMR spectroscopy. J.D. Swarbrick, P. Ung, X.-C. Su, A. Maleckis, S. Chhabra, T. Huber, G. Otting and B. Graham. Chem. Commun. 2011, 47, 7368–7370.
[3] DOTA-amide lanthanide tag for reliable generation of pseudocontact shifts in protein NMR spectra. B. Graham, C.T. Loh, J.D. Swarbrick, P. Ung, J. Shin, H. Yagi, X. Jia, S. Chhabra, N. Barlow, G. Pintacuda, T. Huber and G. Otting. Bioconjug. Chem. 2011, 22, 2118–2125.
[2] A facile, click chemistry-based approach to assembling fluorescent chemosensors for protein tyrosine kinases. M.A. Kamaruddin, P. Ung, M.I. Hossain, B. Jarasrassamee, W. O’Malley, P. Thompson, D. Scanlon, H.-C. Cheng and B. Graham. Bioorg. Med. Chem. Lett. 2011, 21, 329–331.
[1] New macrocyclic terbium(III) complex for use in RNA footprinting experiments. M.J. Belousoff, P. Ung, C.M. Forsyth, Y. Tor, L. Spiccia and B. Graham. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2009, 131, 1106-1114.