2016 Cohort

• Joseph Barker (MChem)

  Graduated from the University of Oxford in 2016. In his final year, he worked in the lab of Professor Jeremy Robertson on the use of azatrimethylenemethane intermediates in synthesis and the reactivity of rhodium carbenoids tethered to furans.
• Jamie Cadge (MSci)

  Graduated from the University of Nottingham. During his final year Jamie worked with Dr. Liam Ball on developing methodology for bismuth-catalysed aromatic fluorinations. In summer 2014 he completed a summer placement at Nottingham with Dr. James Dowden synthesising compounds for use in additive manufacturing and also completed a placement at GSK in summer 2015.
• Bethan Donnelly (MSci)

  Graduated from the University of Bristol in 2016. Her final year project was supervised by Professor Chris Willis and involved investigations into the total synthesis of the agnestadrides, part of the maleidride family of natural products. In the summer of 2014 she completed a placement at Imperial College London with Professor Tony Barrett, working on the synthesis of new ligands for hydroamination catalysts.
• Rory Mykura (MSc)

  Graduated from the University of Birmingham, 2016. His masters project was supervised by Youcef Mehellou, joint with the School of Pharmacy. Rory worked on the synthesis of novel immunotherapy based Protides™.
• Debbie Nicol (MChem)

  Graduated from the University of Strathclyde. Her final year project focused on the development of an NMR method for the simplification of complex mixture analysis under Dr John Parkinson. During her fourth year, she undertook an industrial placement at Pfizer, investigating catalytic direct amidation reactions between unactivated carboxylic acids and amines. In 2013, she completed a summer placement with Professor Rein Ulijn, preparing designer molecular gels for cell culture.
• Lauren O'Neil (MSci)

  Graduated from the University of Nottingham. During her placement year at Sygnature Discovery she worked on the Innovative Medicines Initiative project where she synthesised compound libraries based on small molecule scaffolds with potential drug-like properties. During her final year she investigated the influence of secondary amine organocatalysts in a one pot tandem conjugate addition/reduction reaction of aldehydes to nitroalkenes to give molecules with three contiguous stereo-centres under the supervision of Dr James Dowden.
• ‌Jenny Samphire (MSci)

  Graduated from Imperial College London. Her final year project explored the release of sonic hedgehog from cells using photocrosslinking metabolic tags. For this, Jenny synthesised a probe based on palmitic acid, which was then incubated into cells and analysed using techniques such as SDS-PAGE. Jenny went twice on summer placements, once to Prof. Ali Tavassoli's lab and another with Prof. Bruno Linclau, both at Southampton University.
• Hannah Steeds (MSci)

  Graduated from Queen’s University Belfast in 2016. Her final year project involved completing a 2nd generation formal synthesis of (3R)-Inthomycin C and investigating the O-directed free radical hydrostannation reaction, under the supervision of Professor Karl J Hale. Hannah completed an industrial placement at AstraZeneca where she worked on the final stage of an oncology drug for Phase II/III clinical trials and monitored the reactivity of a set of potential genotoxic impurities.
• Dan Wise (MSci)

  Graduated from the University of Bristol in 2016. During his industrial placement year, Dan worked for De La Rue developing security features for the paper and polymer banknote industries. His final year project under the supervision of Dr Chris Russell involved synthesising novel carboranyl phosphine ligands and analysing their coordination behaviour and catalytic activity.
• Frank Zieleniewski (MChem)

  Graduated from the University of Reading. During his placement year at Evotec, Frank worked on a project undertaking synthesis of small molecule antibacterial drugs. His final year project was investigating ring-opening reactions of meta-photocycloadducts under the supervision of Dr Andy Russell. Frank was awarded the Paul Holt Prize for Top Student in Organic Chemistry.