2020 Cohort

• Grace Boden (MRes)

  Graduated from the University of Nottingham in 2020. During her time there she worked with Prof. Ross Denton towards the total synthesis of natural product simonsol A. Prior to this, Grace completed her undergraduate studies at The University of Liverpool and gained industrial experience at Unilever and Sygnature Discovery.
• Kaiman Cheung (MChem)

  Graduated from St Catherine’s College, University of Oxford in 2020. During his final year research project, he worked with Prof. Steve Davies investigating the development of methodology for the asymmetric synthesis of α,β-diamino acids and their derivatives.
• Sarah Coppock (MChem)

  Graduated from Keele University in 2020. Her final year project involved utilising furan groups in the doubly diastereoselective synthesis of 2,4,6-trisubstituted tetrahydropyrans under the supervision of Dr Matthew O’Brien. She also completed two summer placements in 2018 and 2019, working in early chemical development at AstraZeneca.
• Malcolm George (MSci)

  Graduated from the University of Birmingham in 2020, having spent a year in industry. Malcolm spent his final year project working with Professor John Fossey, synthesising triazole-phosphine ligands for application in gold(I) catalysis. During his industrial placement, he worked in research and development for GlaxoSmithKline in the Respiratory, Epigenetics, and Protein Degradation departments performing organic synthesis for medicinal chemistry.
• Josie Harcourt (MSci)

  Graduated from the University of Nottingham in 2020 with a year in industry. For her final year project, she worked with Prof. Robert Stockman towards the use of chiral sulfinimines in the asymmetric synthesis of azetidines. During her third year she completed an industrial placement with Pfizer in the synthetic chemistry team.
• Emma Hollis (MSci)

  Graduated from the University of Bristol in 2020. She completed a summer placement with Prof. Chris Willis in 2019 working on isomeric studies of the polyketide natural product kalimantacin. She continued in the Willis group for her final year project where she collaborated with Dr Joleen Masschelein at KU Leuven in Belgium, investigating the biosynthesis of the natural product oximidine. She synthesised pantetheine bound substrates, which were to be used in bioassays to further understand the role and function of specific enzymes in the biosynthetic pathway to oximidine.
• James Mortimer (MChem)

  Graduated from the University of York in 2020. He spent his final year on placement at AstraZeneca(Macclesfield), where he worked on three different drug molecules in various stages - including carrying out synthetic route design for a drug compound - and process design of another. The route design work included a focus on alpha-methyl benzylamines and asymmetric synthesis of such a motif. Additionally, in 2018 he carried out a summer placement in York with Dr Anne Routledge, working on solvent effects on resin swelling. This work has since been published in ChemistryOpen.
• Dylan Rigby (MChem)

  Graduated from Durham University in 2020. During his final year of undergraduate study, he undertook a 12-month industrial placement, working in the Medicinal Chemistry department at GlaxoSmithKline in Stevenage. His placement involved the synthesis of small, novel compounds as part of projects at the hit to lead and lead optimisation stages in drug discovery.
• Isobel Scott Douglas (MSci)

  Graduated from the University of Bristol in 2020. During her final year project, she worked with Dr Pierangelo Gobbo towards creating protocell membranes using polymeric nanoobjects synthesised by polymerisation-induced self-assembly. In 2018 she completed a summer placement with Prof. Charl Faul working on developing a 3D printable, flexible and conductive material for use in a supercapacitor.
• Olivia Watts (MChem)

  Graduated from the University of Manchester in 2020. During her final year project, she worked under the supervision of Prof. David Leigh in developing the use of metal-free active template reactions to synthesise higher order rotaxanes. In 2018 she undertook a year abroad at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore, where she also spent the summer of 2019 working with Assoc. Prof. Roderick Bates on the total synthesis of asperidine B.