Individual achievements – listed chronologically, since 2016
2021
Honour student Anna Geyer received a 1st class honours and an A for her dissertation, and in addition was awarded three prizes by the University this year:
1) Biological Chemistry Honours Prize: Best honours student in biological chemistry
2) Evelyn Gow Research Fund: Awarded annually to first class hons lady student in chemistry
3) Wishart Memorial Bequest: Bequested from Mrs W J Wishart’s Estate – expressed a student studying chemistry should receive prize
Former group members News and achievements:
• Matt Baud was appointed Lecturer in Medicinal Chemistry and Chemical Biology at the School of Chemistry of the University of Southampton
• Matt Baud was awarded the BACR Roger Griffin Prize for Cancer Drug Discovery.
• Morgan Gadd was appointed as Early Career Research Fellow at the University of Lancaster
• Emil Bulatov established the Chemical Biology Group in 2015 at Kazan Federal University
Find out more about Emil’ research group on the KPFU website.
• Carles Galdeano was appointed Serra Hunter Lecturer Professor at the University of Barcelona
https://www.ub.edu/tpdlab/
• Andrea Testa and Scott Hughes appointed Head of Chemistry and Head of Biology, respectively, at Amphista therapeutics. They are now in the roles of Director of Exploratory Chemistry and Director of Exploratory Biology, respectively.
• Pedro Soares was awarded a Marie Sklodowska-Curie Individual Fellowship. Read more about the grant on the Porto website.
• Carles Galdeano was the recipient of the “2019 Young Investigator Award” sponsored by Molecules (MDPI).
• Chiara Maniaci was awarded a UK BBSRC Discovery Fellowship, starting October 2020.
Read more about the Fellowship’s cohort on the BBSRC website.
• Fleur Ferguson was appointed as the William A. Lee Assistant Professor in the Departments of Chemistry & Biochemistry, and the Skaggs School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences at UC San Diego, starting January 2021.
• Will Farnaby has been appointed group leader and Principal Investigator at Dundee’s CeTPD. See news on the University of Dundee website.
• Andrea Testa was awarded the 2022 Talented Young Italians in the UK’s award for Research and Innovation, from the Italian Chamber of Commerce and Industry for the UK. See Tweet
• Chiara Maniaci has been appointed group leader and Principal Investigator at the Dundee’s MRC-PPU. See news article on the University of Dundee website.
• Francesca Ester joins the Francis Crick institute as a Group Leader to study proteolytic complexes of different pathogenic bacteria and to enable the discovery of new antibiotics by targeted protein degradation.
2020
Nikolai Makukhin invited speaker at the RSC Perkin Meeting in January 2020
Andrea Testa invited speaker at the PROTACs and Beyond symposium in London on 9 March 2020
William Farnaby invited speaker a talk at the Digital Workshop “Drug Discovery: Targeted Protein Degradation” sponsored by Promega in June 2020. Read more on the Oxford Global website.
Nicole Ong was awarded several Life Sciences Prizes 2019/20:
- BA – British Association 1939 Prize (Medal)
- Biological Chemistry Honours Prize
- Evelyn Gow Research Fund
- Wishart Memorial Bequest
William Farnaby invited speaker at Oxford Global Drug Discovery digital workshop, 10 June 2020
Nicole Trainor gave an oral presentation at the Biotechne Targeted Protein Degradation Virtual Symposium in 15 July 2020. Read more Biotecne website.
William Farnaby invited speaker at Oxford Global’s Drug Discovery Summit “Discovery Series: Virtual”, 29 July 2020
Claire Whitworth gave an oral presentation at the 18th Annual “Discovery on Target” Virtual Conference, 16 September 2020
William Farnaby panelist for the Wuxi-Apptech hosted webinar on Enabling technologies for targeted protein degradation, 16 September 2020
Siying Zhong gave an oral presentation at the Mercachemsyncon virtual symposium, 7 October 2020
Emelyne Diers gave an oral presentation at the SP Genevac hosted webinar on targeted protein degradation, 7 October 2020. Read the webinar tech note summary on the Biopharma website!
William Farnaby invited speaker at the SCI Highlights in Medicinal Chemistry IV (virtual), 12 October 2020
Emelyne Diers spoke at the 5th Medicinal Chemistry & Protein Degradation Summit (virtual) on 16-17 November 2020
Aileen Frost gave an oral presentation at The Scientist Webinar: Targeting Proteins and Proteolysis to Counter Cancer, 19 November 2020. Red more about the webinar on The Scientist website.
2019
William Farnaby invited to contribute a lecture at the EMBL (European Molecular Biology Laboratory) course: Target Engagement in Biology and Drug Discovery, and gave an EMBL/Cellzome research seminar in Heidelberg, Germany 11th – 15th March 2019
David Zollman was selected to give a talk at the 6th NovAliX International Conference in Cannes, France (March 2019)
William Farnaby delivered a Targeted Protein Degradation Webinar with C&EN in April 2019, viewable on YouTube.
Nicole Trainor was co-chair of the UK’s Society of Chemical Industry (SCI) meeting “Molecular Interactions 2019” held in Granta Park, Cambridge on 23rd May 2019
Claire Whitworth gave a poster in spotlight talk at the ELRIG ‘Advances in cell based screening in drug discovery’ conference in Gothenburg in May 2019
William Farnaby invited to speak at the UK’s Society of Chemical Industry (SCI) ‘New Approaches in Medicinal Chemistry’ conference (June 2019)
Nikolai Makukhin gave an oral presentation at the 18th RSC Chemical Biology and Bioorganic Group (CBBG) Firbush conference (September 2019)
Sarath Ramachandran was invited to present at the SULSA conference: ‘Disruptive Technologies in the Life Sciences Conference –from Single Molecules to Systems’ at the Royal College of Physicians Edinburgh on 26th September 2019
David Zollman earned a funded place on the Instruct-ERIC Workshop on Integration of Computational Approaches in Structural Biology in Prague, October 2019
William Farnaby delivered a Workshop on “Academia-Industry collaboration models to expedite PROTAC drug discovery” at the 2nd Targeted Protein Degradation Summit, Boston, October 2019
Scott Hughes spoke at the 4th Medicinal Chemistry & Protein Degradation Summit in London on 29th October 2019
2018
Andrea Testa invited speaker at the Ubiquitin Proteasome System session of the Drug Discovery Chemistry conference in San Diego (April 2018) in San Diego, CA, USA
William Farnaby invited to contribute a lecture at ELRIG Research & Innovation 2018 at Homerton College, Cambridge, April 2018
Andrew Runcie selected to give a talk at the RSC Chemical Biology and Bio-Organic Group Postgraduate Symposium, 10th May 2018, School of Chemistry, University of Leeds
Xavier Lucas invited to contribute a lecture at the University of Salerno for a workshop on approaches to targeting proteins, 21st May 2018, Salerno, Italy.
Vittoria Zoppi selected for a Division of Medicinal Chemistry of the Italian Chemical Society Fellowship in the 2018 EFMC Summer School of Medicinal Chemistry (ESMEC) in Urbino, June 2018.
Emelyne Diers oral presentation at the Gregynog synthesis conference, Gregynog, August 2018
Andrew Runcie: ISSF funding received after his PhD (Sept 2018 till Jan 2019).
William Farnaby invited to contribute a short talk at the BCDD Divisional retreat
Guilherme Castro selected for a studentship and oral presentation at the XII Biological and Medicinal Chemistry Symposium for postgraduates (Dec 2018)
Calum Henderson won the Gold prize for the best Biological poster at the Honours symposium (Dec2018)
Nicole Trainor invited to contribute a short-talk at the RSC meeting “Chemical Tools in Systems Biology III” held on 17 December 2018 at Burlington House, London (Dec2018)
2017
Andrea Testa invited speaker at the RSC Perkin Meeting in January 2017
Teresa Cardote selected oral communication on her PhD research at ZOMES IX, Rome, Italy, February 2017
Andrea Testa invited speaker at the Prochaine Journée Chimie-Biologie-Santé (Chemistry-Biology-Health Scientific Meeting) in Toulouse on 31 March 2017
Kwok-Ho Chan invited speaker at the 12th Annual Drug Discovery Chemistry Conference (April 2017) in San Diego on topic Targeted Protein Degradation by Small Molecules
Guilherme Castro selected for a scholarship at the 2017 EFMC Summer School of Medicinal Chemistry in Urbino and also selected to give a talk during the meeting.
Xavier Lucas selected as a speaker for the 2017 Gordon Research Seminar (GRS) on Computer Aided Drug Design, 15-16 July 2017, West Dover, VT, US.
Pedro Soares awarded a SCI bursary to participate on the 19th RSC/SCI Medicinal Chemistry Symposium on Cambridge.
Pedro Soares selected to give a talk on the PPI-Net Young Researchers Symposium (19th September 2017, School of Chemistry, University of Leeds, Leeds, UK)
David Wright, Master student supervised by Anastasia Amato, highly commended in the Life Sciences category in the 2017 Undergraduate Awards (Sept 2017)
Anastasia Amato: ISSF funding received after her PhD (Nov 2017 till Jan 2018).
2016
Xavier Lucas awarded a Marie Sklodowska-Curie action Individual Fellowship for career development
Chiara Maniaci selected oral communication on her PhD research at 41st International Summer School on Organic Synthesis “A. Corbella” in Gargnano (BS), Italy, June 2016
Chiara Maniaci selected oral communication on her PhD research at the 2016 EFMC Summer School of Medicinal Chemistry (ESMEC) in Urbino, Italy, June 2016
Xavier Lucas wins Best Poster Prize at the 2016 EFMC-ISMC conference in Manchester, Sept 2016
Andrea Testa Best Poster Prize at the 16th Annual RSC Fluorine Subject Group Postgraduate Meeting, Sept 2016
Chiara Maniaci selected as one of the student talks at the 2016 years PiCLS symposium (Oct 2016)
Xavier Lucas invited to contribute a lecture at the annual SCI YCP Review meeting, 1st Dec 2016, London.