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Tom Visits Novo Nordisk in Denmark

Written by: Tom Smith. From October to December 2022, I had the privilege of visiting the R&D site of Novo Nordisk in Denmark as part of the Kawamura Group’s ongoing collaboration with this pharmaceutical company. It was incredible to experience the cutting-edge science going on there; the company specialises in treating diabetes as well as a variety of other chronic illnesses, and the wealth of expertise they have onsite in peptide chemistry and many other areas was fantastic to be part of. During my placement I was able to undertake various projects including massively parallel peptide synthesis, high throughput screening assays, and DNA library sequencing analysis. As well as improving… Read More »Tom Visits Novo Nordisk in Denmark

Grace Roper presents her work at 3rd PSL Chemical Biology Symposium in Paris

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12th-13th January 2023  Grace presented her DPhil work at the 3rd PSL Chemical Biology Symposium in Paris, her poster summarised key results from her DPhil on the development of macrocyclic peptides as multifunctional probes. Thanks to Oxford Chemistry Department for providing funding. 

Emma Wins RSC CBBG Travel Grant

Emma won an RSC CBBG travel grant which enabled her to visit the lab of our collaborator Professor Frances Platt (Department of Pharmacology) in Oxford for two weeks in January 2023.   The visit enabled Emma to test her cyclic peptide compounds in next stage assay models including against mouse brain homogenates and cell lysates. This enabled cross-screening against different isoenzymes of the disease target for selectivity studies, helping accelerate hit compound progression for lysosomal disorders and neurodegenerative therapy. As well as advancing the PhD, the visit helped strengthen collaborations with a world-leading laboratory in the disease field, with future collaborative work already in place in the coming months. Image Description(… Read More »Emma Wins RSC CBBG Travel Grant

Welcome to the group Chris!

A very warm welcome to Chris Mullins, who joins the group as a PhD student as part of the Molecular Sciences for Medicine (MoSMed) CDT. Chris comes to us from Evox Therapeutics, Oxford where he specialised in the downstream purification of exosomes for rare disease indications. He graduated from The University of Warwick with an MBio in Biochemistry with Industrial Placement, during which he spent 12-months at UCB in Slough developing novel engineered antibody formats. Welcome to the group Chris!

Klem Simelis Presents his Work at RSC Chemical Biology Conference, Ireland

Earlier this week, Klem attended the RSC ChemBio conference in Ireland where he presented his DPhil work on the characterisation of TET enzyme bimodal activity, highlighting previously unappreciated poor coupling of 5-methylcytosine hydroxylase and 2-OG decarboxylase enzyme activities, which may have implications for the control of TCA cycle intermediate formation and inhibitor development. 

Welcome to the group Rob!

We are excited to welcome Dr. Rob Dawber to group as a Postdoctoral Research Associate. Rob received his MChem degree at the University of Leeds in 2018. In July 2022, Rob completed his PhD at the same institute through the MRC DiMeN DTP programme, where he developed peptidomimetic inhibitors of key protein-protein interactions of the Aurora A kinase under the supervision of Prof. Richard Bayliss and Prof. Andy Wilson. Rob will be investigating lysine demethylases (KDMs) in relation to the chemistry of epigenetics and associated cancers. Welcome Rob!

Summer Newcastle University Chemical Biology Workshop

On Friday 1st July 2022 we hosted the second Chemical biology workshop at Newcastle University Groups from across the faculty of medicine science and the school of natural and environment science presented a quick synopsis of their research with the aim to spark ideas for collaboration and more awareness of the diverse Chem Bio research happening at Newcastle University. Ten academics delivered flash presentations on diverse areas of research (see below). The talks were followed by a poster session where our early career researchers showcased their work and networked with colleagues from across the university. Exploring mechanisms of kinase inhibitor resistance in MYC driven lymphoma, Neil Perkins, FMS Understanding protein… Read More »Summer Newcastle University Chemical Biology Workshop

Welcome to the group Harriet!

A warm welcome to Harriet Stanway-Gordon who started in the group this month.  Harriet undertook her PhD with Prof. Mike Waring in the Medicinal Chemistry group at Newcastle, focusing on the development of micellar-mediated DNA-compatible chemistry for use in DNA-encoded library (DEL) synthesis, where she was involved in the development and optimisation of multiple classes of reactions. Through the application of this methodology, a proposed new class of drug molecules, termed cyclic peptide small molecule hybrids (CyPeMs) can now be constructed within DELs. Harriet has been awarded an EPSRC doctoral prize to expand upon her PhD research, involving the synthesis of CyPeM DELs and subsequent selection against several challenging epigenetic… Read More »Welcome to the group Harriet!

Thesis hand in day for Klem!

Our group member Klemensas Simelis based at Oxford University handed in his thesis this week. Klem’s research looked at the “Development of Chemical Tools for Ten-Eleven Translocation Enzymes”. A summary of his project follows: Methylation of DNA (5-methylcytosine) is an epigenetic mark that typically silences gene expression. Ten-Eleven Translocation enzymes (TETs) oxidise the methyl groups of 5-methylcytosine, forming epigenetic DNA marks with distinct functions and facilitating DNA demethylation by other cellular mechanisms, which restores gene expression. The work discussed in the thesis is focused on: i) broadening the understanding of how these enzymes work using biochemical assays to detect catalytic activity, and ii) developing small molecule and cyclic peptide TET inhibitors… Read More »Thesis hand in day for Klem!

RSC Chemical Biology Symposium

Kawamura group PhD student Grace Roper attended the RSC Chemical Biology Symposium which took place in London on 9th May 2022.  Grace presented her work in collaboration with GSK with a poster on ‘macrocyclic peptides as affinity probes’.  Some brilliant talks and opportunities for networking,  Grace really enjoyed catching up with colleagues from the Oxford-GSK-Crick CDT.