Harriet Stanway-Gordon wins EPSRC Doctoral Prize Fellowship

SNES Medicinal Chemistry PhD student Harriet Stanway-Gordon has won an EPSRC doctoral prize fellowship to further develop work carried out as part of her PhD in the group of Prof. Akane Kawamura.

Harriet’s PhD studies with Prof. Mike Waring have been developing new methodology to synthesis DNA-encoded macrocycles.  In the fellowship, she will apply this methodology to synthesise encoded libraries of cyclic peptide small molecule hybrid molecules.  Due to their unique properties, these compounds have the potential to act as drugs for thus far intractable protein classes, opening up novel opportunities for new medicines.  The project aims to synthesise libraries of these hybrid molecules in very high throughput with DNA-encoding, which could provide a rapid means to identify active compounds for protein targets that could be optimised into potential medicines.

The project supplements existing strengths in Newcastle. The Kawamura group has a nationally leading position in the chemical biology of cyclic peptides and prior experience with an ideal set of protein targets to exemplify this approach, and the Waring group is the only academic group working with synthetic DNA-encoded libraries in the UK.  Together with the extensive group of researchers working in the Discovery of Medicines theme, Newcastle provides a unique opportunity to carry out this work.

Harriet joined Newcastle University from Imperial College, to study for a Drug Chemistry MSc, part time whilst caring for her young daughter.  She then stayed on for her PhD and will complete her studies in September this year.

Harriet said “I am thrilled to have been awarded the EPSRC Doctoral Prize Fellowship and am very excited to have this opportunity - I can't wait to get started on the project”.

Last modified: Tue, 16 Nov 2021 08:18:37 GMT