On Monday 13 February Grace defended her DPhil thesis. She wrote a blog all about the challenges and celebrations of her PhD journey.
I began my PhD in Oxford as an Oxford-GSK-Crick Chemical Biology CDT student, with 9 months training in chemical biology through taught courses and two 12-week lab placements. The lab placements were particularly helpful for broadening my skill set, allowing me to try two completely different projects. For one project I spent time at GSK working on photoreactive cyclic peptide probes, and for the other I was studying the effect of tissue stiffness on (myo)fibroblast biology using immortal and primary cell lines. I chose to work in the Kawamura Lab for my main PhD project and started in July 2018.
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Celebrations with my team after my successful defence!
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International day for women in science 2019 (Oxford lab – with Kawamura, Flashman & Schofield group members.
In Oxford I spent time synthesising azide cyclic peptides and optimised methodology for synthesis of a peptide containing two backbone N-methyl groups. A high yielding CuAAC click reaction was also developed as a general method for the synthesis of multifunctional peptide conjugates. A few tangents to my main project were pursued, including a collaboration with the Davis lab to test KDM4A zinc ejection by a histone H3K9 bromohomonorleucine variant which resulted in my first paper (DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-020-2733-7).
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Last minute preparations before my defence
My PhD has spanned turbulent times, including the lab move from Oxford to Newcastle and the Covid19 pandemic. I spent approximately 6 months with no access (or very restricted access) to a lab before I restarted in the Newcastle labs in September 2020. There were several obstacles learning to get around a new building/university during a pandemic, but I definitely learnt a lot through the experience! In Newcastle I tested affinity probes developed in Oxford on cell lysates and worked with Valeria Cobiltean (an MChem/visiting student) to apply the methodology developed to other epigenetic targets. I also built a small library of potential protein degraders and pursued one of the hits in greater detail.
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Outreach work with Valeria Cobiltean.
Akane has been extremely supportive through the many lows and all the highs within my PhD, thank you so much! I have also been fortunate to collaborate with GSK during my PhD and am very grateful to my industrial supervisor Dr Albert Isidro Llobet for fantastic advice and encouragement.
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DPhil Course meeting 2022 with Oxford, GSK and the Crick.