28th SCI Young Chemist in Industry 2021

I completed my PhD in 2014 from University of Bristol, supervised by Prof. Chris Willis. Following my PhD I joined Astex as a medicinal chemist where I am currently a Senior Research Associate and leader of our Fragment Library project.

Catalina completed her BSc in Chemistry in 2016 and undertook a PhD in Chemical Engineering at University College Dublin. As part of her PhD she investigated methods of synthesising oligonucleotides with liquid phase supports using novel reactor configurations. After finishing her PhD she joined Exactmer as a Chemical Engineer where she continues to carry out research in novel oligonucleotide manufacturing processes.

Derek was born in Arkansas, he studied for his undergraduate degree at Hendrix College in 1983, he continued further study at Duke in 1988, and completed a Humboldt post-doc in Darmstadt, Germany. He worked at Schering-Plough, Bayer, Vertex and currently works at Novartis. During that time Derek has worked in CNS, oncology, anti-infectives, metabolic diseases and more. He started "In the Pipeline" in 2002, and it's now the oldest/longest-running science blog on the internet.

Holly received her MChem in Chemistry from the University of York in 2018. As part of her undergraduate course, she undertook a one-year industrial placement at GSK's R&D facility in Stevenage. Here she worked on photochemical benzylic brominations in Chemical Development. Holly is currently a final year industrial PhD student on the University of Strathclyde-GSK collaborative PhD programme, supervised by Drs David Pascoe and David Lindsay. Her research is focused on synthetic applications of asymmetric remote functionalisation methods for the synthesis of bioactive molecules.

Katherine began her chemistry career at the University of Oxford, where she received a 1st class MChem degree in 2018. She undertook her Master’s project in Dr Christiane Timmel’s group, focusing on the spin chemistry of flavoproteins and the implications for animal migration. She then began her ongoing doctoral work with the GSK/University of Strathclyde Collaborative PhD Programme, working in medicinal chemistry. Her project focuses on early stage drug development, specifically new modalities involving bifunctional small molecules, including Antibody Recruiting Molecules (ARMs) and Lysosome Targeting Chimeras (LYTACs).

Graduated from the University of Liverpool in 2009 with a 1st Class MChem in “Chemistry with a Year in Industry” (year in industry was spent at GSK in Harlow). Went straight to Eisai after graduating and worked there for just over 4 years in the area of Neuroscience (until Eisai decided to shut down R&D in the UK). From Eisai, I went to BioFocus (now Charles River) for 8 months before starting at AstraZeneca in Cambridge in 2014 working in Oncology as a Senior Research Scientist.

Thomas recently joined AstraZeneca’s PharmSci department as a Senior Scientist following a productive postdoc in AZ’s CVRM medicinal chemistry department under the supervision of Giulia Bergonzini and Magnus Johansson in collaboration with Burkhard König from the University of Regensburg where he worked on CO2 fixation via photoredox catalysis. Thomas has a very strong background in organic chemistry having completed a MSci degree from the University of Bristol under the supervision of Varinder K. Aggarwal FRS, training at the Wolfson Institute for Biomedical Research in London and a PhD under the supervision of Daniele Leonori at the University of Manchester. He has produced high quality and high-impact papers including papers in Nat. Chem, JACS, ACIE & Cell: Chem in the field of visible-light-mediated photoredox catalysis focusing on the formation C-C & C-N bonds.