Ryan Cairns (PhD Student)
Ryan joined the group in September 2017 as an iCASE student, having completed an MSci at the University of Bristol. His project is in partnership with BASF an involves developing enzymes capable of converting low-cost feedstocks to high-value chiral molecules.
Rachel O’Sullivan (Masters Student)
Rachel joined the group in October 2020 as Research Masters student, having completed her degree at University College Cork. Her research focuses on exploiting the reversibility of enzymes to allow access to complex natural products and their analogues.
Freya Taday (PhD Student)
Freya joined the group in September 2017, after completing her MSci in Medicinal and Biological Chemistry at the University of Nottingham. Her research will focus on development of the development of biocatalytic routes to high-value compounds.
Justyna Kuska (PhD Student)
Justyna completed an MSc in Biology-Biotechnology at the University of Copenhagen, where she worked on the development of a LPMO enzymatic assay and evaluation of it's activity. Prior to that, Justyna studied Biotechnology in her native Poland. In September 2016, she joined the BBSRC's Doctoral Training Programme at the University of Nottingham and in April 2017, she joined our group to embark on her PhD studies. Justyna's project focuses on the development of imine reductases with entirely new substrate specificity.
Oliver Piech (Postdoctoral researcher)
Oliver joined the group in September 2020, having completed his PhD in organic chemistry at the Leibniz University Hannover. He has extensive experience in biochemistry, enzymology and protein engineering. His projects involves the development of biocatalytic routes to therapeutic iminosugars
In 2021, Oliver moved to a position in Abbott as a Technical support specialist.
James Ryan (Postdoctoral researcher)
James has been a member of the group since 2014, when he began his PhD research in Manchester Metropolitan University. He was a postdoctoral researcher from 2017 until 2020, where his work focused the development of biocatalytic methodology using transaminases and alcohol dehydrogenase.
In 2020, James moved to a position in Redx Pharma as a Scientist.
Michael Sharkey (Postdoctoral researcher)
Michael was a group member from 2017 until 2019. His work in the group focused on the identification of novel bacterial transaminases with activity towards industrially-relevant targets. His project was in collaboration with CHAIN Biotechnology.
Evelina Kulcinskaja (Postdoctoral researcher)
Evelina was a member of our group from October 2015-2017. Her work focused on the development of transaminase methodology.
Evelina later moved to a position as lab manager in Avantor (previously VWR) based at AstraZeneca in Gothenburg, Sweden. Her role in Avantor involves improving work practices in the laboratory and ensuring that everything runs smoothly and safely. She takes care of practical aspects and is the contact person between the researchers in my lab, which is a mass spectrometry hub, and the facilities management team.
Amalina Mohd Amin (PhD)
Amalina was in the group completing her PhD from 2014 until 2018. Her research focused on the immobilization of transaminase biocatalysts using polymerizable ionic liquids with the aim of generating robust enzymes for suitable for a range of organic chemistry and industrial applications.
Following her PhD, Amalina moved to an academic position at Universiti Sains Islam Malaysia (USIM).
Andrew Gomm (PhD Student)
Andrew completed his PhD in 2017. His project was focused on the application of transaminase biocatalysts in organic synthesis with a particular focus on developing enzymes for industrial processes.
Andrew later joined Prof. Adam Nelson’s group at the University of Leeds as a postdoctoral researcher, before taking position at Syngenta as a Senior Chemist.
Stelios Grigoriou (PhD Student)
Stelios completed his PhD in the group in 2019. His project involved the development of a self-sufficient whole-cell system, capable of supplying both the substrate and catalyst for selected transamination reactions.
After completing his PhD, he joined FabricNano - a biotech start-up that provides biochemical solutions utilizing biocatalysts. His role involves lab-based research as a synthetic biologist and focuses on the production and characterization of enzymes.
Tom Clarke (Research Student)
Tom completed almost two years in our research group. His research was centered on the development of chemo-enzymatic processes for the conversion of low-value, renewable platform molecules into high-value chemicals.
Chris Peel (PhD Student)
Chris carried out his PhD research between 2015 until 2019. His PhD project was to explore the use of multi-enzyme cascades to furnish industrially relevant scaffolds starting from biomass-derived platform chemicals.
Following his PhD, he moved to Charnwood Molecular as a Research Chemist.
Harry Eastman (PhD Student)
Harry was Carried out his PhD research between 2015-2019. Harry's PhD research involved traditional total synthesis and development of chemo-enzymatc routes to valuable chiral compounds.
Following his PhD research, he moved to Charnwood Molecular as a Research Chemist.