Hannah completed her MChem at the University of Oxford, doing her 4th year project with Prof. Ed Anderson involving the synthesis of anti-leishmanial and anti-trypanosomal compounds. Her research interests lie in small molecule synthesis applied to drug research, having previously done a summer project with Prof. Barry Potter synthesizing di-fluorinated anti-cancer compounds and a gap year working at the Institute of Cancer research, London. Outside of chemistry she enjoys rowing and painting.

Interested in the chemistry of life, Ludwig studied Biochemistry for his BSc and MSc at the Technical University Munich (Germany). During this time, he participated in iGEM, an international student competition in Synthetic Biology, as member of the joint team of both Munich universities. Experiencing exciting and interdisciplinary research in different research groups at TUM, inspired him to join the Cravatt lab at Scripps Research in San Diego (USA), where he worked on the synthesis and characterization of protein degrader molecules. Seeking for hands-on experience in mass spectrometry based analytics, Ludwig did an internship at F. Hoffmann-La Roche in Basel (Switzerland) to develop a LC-MS method for quality control of biopharmaceuticals. Finally, he worked in the Superti-Furga lab at CeMM in Vienna (Austria) for his master thesis project, where he characterized protein-protein interactions involving transporters of the Solute Carrier family by MS-based proteomic approaches. Besides his interest in using chemical tools to manipulate biology, he likes playing soccer and meeting friends.

Ríona completed her B.A. (Mod.) in Medicinal Chemistry in Trinity College Dublin (TCD) in 2020. She has a keen interest in the areas of chemistry and biochemistry. She has completed a summer studentship in Prof. Isabel Rozas’ laboratory, in the Trinity Biomedical Sciences Institute in TCD, with a project entitled “3,4’-Bis-guanidine diaryl derivatives as type-III BRaf inhibitors”. She also completed her final year project entitled “Searching for new guanidine-based kinase inhibitors” in the Rozas’ laboratory. She is a recipient of the Cocker Prize in Chemistry from the TCD School of Chemistry for demonstrating great practical ability in her final year project. Additionally, she has been nominated for the Gold Medal in Medicinal Chemistry for showing exceptional merit in her final examinations. Outside the field of medicinal chemistry, Ríona has a passion for both photography and reading.

Matthew completed his Chemistry MSci at Cambridge, working on peptide stapling in Prof David Spring’s group in his final year. He has enjoyed dabbling in the biosciences, as part of his natural sciences undergrad and summer research projects, which have included fermenting maggot chitin (Entomics Biosystems Ltd), trialling hydrogenase enzyme catalysis (Vincent group, Oxford) and growing mutant Arabidopsis plants (Dupree group, Cambridge). Alongside academic work he finds time for cooking and running.

Harriet completed her MSci and BA in Natural Sciences at Cambridge University, specialising in chemistry in third and fourth year. Her final year project focussed on fragment-based drug discovery in Professor Chris Abell’s group. She has also completed two summer research projects at the University of Bath, one researching protein-protein interactions in amyloid proteins using molecular biology techniques (Professor Jody Mason) and a second generating computer models of fish olfactory regions (Dr Jonathan Cox). In her spare time, Harriet is a keen trombonist.

Simon completed his BA/MSci in Natural Sciences (Chemistry) at the University of Cambridge in 2020. During his undergraduate, he gained experience in biochemistry and structural biology in summer research internships at ETH Zürich via the Amgen Scholars Programme 2018 (Pilhofer Group, identifying effectors of a type VI bacterial secretion system) and at the Vienna BioCenter via the VBC Summer School 2019 (Plaschka Group, studying mRNA export control). At the same time, he progressively focused his degree towards theoretical chemistry and computational physics. For his Part III (Masters) project, he combined his biological and physical fields of interest to study the sequence dependence of liquid-liquid phase separation in protein disordered regions using molecular dynamics simulations. In his spare time, Simon is an amateur musician, with the mission to learn as many musical instruments as possible, no matter the actual proficiency reached. He is also a passionate photographer and prepares a highly experimental cuisine, in turns acclaimed as exceptionally tasteful and criticised as unsuitable for human consumption.

Originally from Hertfordshire, Oli completed his MChem degree at Merton College, Oxford in 2019. He completed his final year project under the supervision of Prof. Stuart Conway, working on the synthesis of proteolysis targeting chimeras (PROTACSs) to recruit a novel E3 ligase. His research interests predominantly lie at the interface of synthetic organic chemistry and chemical biology. Outside of the lab, Oli enjoys cycling and distance running in Oxfordshire’s beautiful countryside, but he can equally be found meeting up with friends, reading or watching a good Netflix series!

Amber received a BSc, MNatSc in Natural Sciences (Industrial), majoring in Chemistry with Biochemistry, from the University of Leeds in 2020. She spent her Industrial Placement year at Vertex Pharmaceuticals, Oxfordshire as part of the Drug Metabolism and Pharmacokinetics (DMPK) team and undertook a summer internship at the Oxford University Clinical Research Unit (OUCRU) in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam as part of the Emerging Infections (EI) group. Her Master’s project centred on the design and synthesis of novel inhibitors of an aminopeptidase for the treatment of multiple therapeutic indications, co-supervised by Dr Richard Foster (Chemistry) and Professor Elwyn Isaac (Biochemistry and Structural Biology).