• Oral drug delivery, bioavailability enhancement and lymphatic drug transport
• Lipid-based formulation design and assessment
• Intracellular drug transport pathways and nuclear targeting
• Nanomedicines, in particular dendrimer-based drug delivery
• Translation and commercialisation

Chris Porter is Director, Monash Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences (MIPS) at Monash University, Melbourne and Professor of Pharmaceutics. He completed his undergraduate and graduate studies at the University of Nottingham before moving to Australia in 1992. Subsequently, Chris’ research program has focused on understanding and quantifying drug absorption, distribution and elimination profiles and on developing the models and techniques to probe these interactions. A major interest has been the issues and problems surrounding the absorption of poorly water soluble, highly lipophilic drugs. In particular Chris' programs have explored the use of lipid-modified drugs and lipid based delivery systems to promote drug integration into endogenous lipid transport pathways in order to enhance oral bioavailability and stimulate lymphatic transport. His interests have also expanded into the mechanisms of cellular transport of lipophilic drugs. In parallel Chris has a long standing interest in the potential utility of dendrimers as drug delivery systems. Chris has published more than 250 peer reviewed papers in these areas, attracting >23,000 citations (h-index 81, Google Scholar) and is a Thompson ISI/Clarivate Highly Cited researcher (2015, 2016, 2018). His research programs have attracted ~$30m in funding from government and commercial organisations. He is an inventor on >15 patent families, many of which are the subject of licencing/assignment deals. The most significant of these are with Starpharma (Melbourne) to develop the DEP^® dendrimer based delivery system (currently in Phase 2 clinical trial) and with PureTech Health (Boston) to develop the Glyph^® lymphatic targeting technology (currently in Phase 1 clinical trial). His group continues to collaborate closely with these organisations to progress the technologies. Chris is a current member of the Editorial Boards of ACS Molecular Pharmaceutics, Pharmaceutical Research, the Journal of Pharmaceutical Sciences and the Journal of Pharmacy and Pharmacology. He is a previous member of the Board of Scientific Advisors of CRS. He is a Fellow of the American Association of Pharmaceutical Scientists and the Royal Australian Chemical Institute.